Mayor Martin Walsh called the Boston Public Schools’ back-to-school planning “one of the hardest decisions we have to make,” saying officials hope to announce in the next couple of weeks what will happen.
“It’s really important though that we’ll have to make a decision fairly quickly for parents to have that predictability,” Walsh told reporters in a press conference Wednesday. Asked whether that means the next week or two, Walsh said, “I hope so.”
Walsh and schools official have indicated that a hybrid model is shaping up to be the the default amid the pandemic, with half the kids physically in school Mondays and Tuesday, no one there on Wednesdays as staff cleans, and then the other half of the students in school on Thursdays and Fridays. On the days when kids aren’t in the building, they’d be doing online learning, and any parents who want to can opt their kids entirely out of in-person learning, under the existing plan.
On Wednesday, in Walsh’s first news conference in nearly two weeks — the longest stretch since the pandemic shutdown began —he reiterated his desire to have kids in school, noting how it will have been six months since they last had in-person classes. He said he feared all-remote learning leaves many students behind and exacerbates existing disparities.
But many city councilors, teachers and activists have said that just won’t work — it’s not safe enough to move ahead with reopening.
At the press conference, Walsh, characterized the current thought process as officials deciding between the hybrid “hopscotch” model and “a period of all-remote learning.” The call between those two, he said, will depend on the data on coronavirus cases in the next couple of weeks.
“This is, without question, one of the hardest decisions that we have to make moving forward,” Walsh told reporters.
The mayor said crews remain at work in the schools to make sure ventilation works, windows open and sanitization stations are in place for if they do decide to have in-person classes.
Walsh said there had been “an uptick” in the positive test rate for coronavirus swabs in Boston, with what had been a sub–2% rate climbing to 2.8% — though it has now ticked back down to 2.5%.
“It’s an uptick, but it’s not an established trend and that’s another thing that we watch out for,” Walsh insisted, noting that the the city continued to expand testing for the virus. “We are monitoring the data very closely.”
