As Rhode Island considers delaying the start of its public schools by two weeks, Gov. Ned Lamont and state Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona met with education officials in Winsted Tuesday, reaffirming the importance of reopening schools safely and their preference for in-person learning.
“Our superintendents are doing an amazing job all around this state. There’s so much fear, there’s so much anxiety, ‘Can we do it safely?’ and my job has been to convince people, we’ve led with public health every step of the way,” Lamont said during a news conference after the closed-door meeting. “If Connecticut can’t get their kids back into the classroom safely, no state can. We’re in a unique position to do that … I think we’ve earned the right, our kids have earned the right, to be able to go into a classroom and see their friends and be with the teacher.”
Lamont maintained that families will have the option to begin the school year from home if they do not feel comfortable yet with the classroom setting, and the state has acquired 100,000 Chromebooks to be distributed to those in need.
“I wouldn’t be opening schools in southern Florida, I wouldn’t be opening schools in Texas or Phoenix or South-Central, L.A., but I would do it in Connecticut … because I know we can do it safely,” he said. “We were one of the first states in the country to close down schools. It broke my heart when we had to do it, and I think people know that we’re cautiously reopening schools, and if the metrics ever change, we would have to change course again.”
News of Rhode Island considering reopening schools in mid-September instead of late August followed a recent spike in cases that landed the state on Connecticut’s travel advisory list in early August. It was removed from the list Tuesday.
Connecticut also recently provided school districts with guidelines on when to pivot learning models based on seven-day averages of new cases per 100,000 residents. If counties were to see more than 10 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, the state would recommend moving from in-person learning to hybrid learning. If counties saw more than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents, it would recommended fully online learning.
While all districts have the option of reopening in a mix of online and in-person education in the fall, Lamont recently said if a low-risk district wanted to reopen completely online, it would have to meet with Cardona to explain why. That scenario became a reality last week in New Haven, one of Connecticut’s largest districts.
“I think those kids ought to have an in-classroom option,” Lamont said. “Don’t tell them they can’t go to the class if their parents feel that that would be best for them and they feel confident doing that, but … we leave a lot of discretion up to the local schools and the local district. If New Haven really does not want to let their kids into the classroom, at least not right now, they’ll go and discuss that with Miguel [Cardona]. … I’m inclined to say, let’s let the kids in the classroom now just so they have that in-person education, as long as we can do it safely.”
Cardona expressed concerns particularly about “high-needs” students, some of whom have not participated in schooling since mid-March, because they did not have access to adequate technology.
“We need to really, especially with the data we have in Connecticut, do everything in our power to safely bring them back,” he said. “There are no perfect answers, we know that. … We’re going to grow and adjust as we have to. That’s part of everyone’s plan. There’s no other state in the country that is in the position we’re in.”
Amanda Blanco can be reached at ablanco@courant.com.
