Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 3/4/2021
LONGMEADOW – At the beginning of the Longmeadow School Committee meeting on Feb. 23, Superintendent M. Martin O’Shea informed members that Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey C. Riley made an announcement on DESE’s intention of taking a hard look at hybrid and remote learning and making some determinations as to whether that in fact counted as time on learning. By April, Riley is expecting elementary students to be back for full in-person learning.
O'Shea stated, “I want to acknowledge upfront that’s information that only came to us just before this meeting and I think that will have important implications for our work going forward and we’ll have to understand the path that DESE is potentially putting us on and how that affects everything that we’re doing here in Longmeadow.”
Fire Chief John Dearborn, Facilities Director Nick Georgantas and COVID Officer Andy Fraser joined the meeting to review health and safety trends and the latest CDC guidelines that have come out. Overall, Chief Dearborn said the community continues to do very well and their cases continue to decrease. The town was at 15 active cases which maintains them in the yellow category from the state system. Longmeadow’s percent positivity is 1.82 and there is no evidence of in-school spread.
“Regionally, we have seen cases decrease in all of the communities,” replied Dearborn. “More communities are coming out of the red. In fact, this week there was a drop statewide in Western Mass so we’re feeling really good about that. The rates of vaccine are increasing and we’re seeing the situation stabilized with travel.”
The meeting went on with updates on the next steps of increased in-person learning with slide presentations from elementary school principals Donna Hutton, Marie Pratt and Amy Stec, middle school principals Nicole Allen and Elizabeth Nelson and high school principal Tom Landers. They’re implementing a plan to offer fifth, sixth, ninth-eleventh and twelfth grade students four days per week learning. The projected start date for fifth grade is March 15; March 1 for 74 of 132 in cohort A and B seniors at Longmeadow High School; March 8 for cohorts A and B students from grades nine-11 and March 22 for sixth grade. The total number of students returning to Center School is 66 to 67, approximately 46 to 47 students returning at Wolf Swamp Road School and a total of 69 students at Blueberry Hill School.
School Committee Vice Chair Bronwyn Monahan responded, “I just want to say in general to all the administrators, I don’t think anyone anticipated this amazing news tonight. I think there's so many parents and students that find out either tonight and tomorrow that are just going be so extremely excited and that's because of all the work you guys have done and it's much appreciated by everyone.”
She continued, “Just the thought of so many kids getting back and still at six feet is a real testament to how hard everyone is working and it shows how much you really want as many students back as possible.”