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Date: 8/31/2022
AGAWAM – With students slated to return to classrooms Sept. 7, school officials are looking forward to focusing on education and the other services schools provide, rather than masking, testing and quarantining in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe the research and data has shown it is more detrimental to students’ learning and well-being not to be in school than it was to change programming because of the pandemic,” said Agawam Public Schools Superintendent Sheila Hoffman, via email. Agawam students will be fully in-person for both learning and extracurricular activities.
“We’ve hurt these kids enough quite frankly,” said Agawam Mayor William Sapelli, who chairs the School Committee and who noted that in-person learning this September will be essentially the same as it was last spring. The school will not require students or staff to wear masks, except under the circumstances prescribed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Masks will be required in school health offices, for example. For students and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, masks must be worn for five days after returning from five days of isolating, unless health or other reasons make wearing a mask impossible.
“We do not plan to perform symptomatic testing at this time. We have limited at-home test kits available, if needed,” said Hoffman.
Under newly updated state and federal guidelines, school districts are not being provided with additional funding for COVID-19 testing supplies, and would have to either use money from their local budget, or use what leftover testing kits they have from the previous year.
This year will see “many new hires in the district as teachers and paraprofessionals,” according to Hoffman, but no changes to principals or administrators.
“We still have some last minute positions to fill (common to previous years) but have been fortunate to retain high quality educators and recruit new ones to the district,” said Hoffman.
For more information about the upcoming academic year visit agawamed.org.