Massachusetts School Reopening: Take The Patch Survey

MASSACHUSETTS — Schools in Massachusetts reopened last week, with students and teachers across the state returning to classrooms and logging into distance learning from their homes.

Schools in a handful of communities, including Dedham, Lynnfield and Nantucket, have pulled back or postponed their plans for in-person instruction after upticks in case counts. Those three communities all landed in the "red" category in the most recent Department of Public Health update, published last Wednesday.

Statewide, about 70 percent of school districts are offering at least some in-person learning. And districts that started the year with remote learning only are setting timelines for when students will return to classrooms for part of the school week. Last week Education Commissioner Jeff Riley noted the Baker Administration's reopening guidance has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and said that Massachusetts, with a two-week COVID-19 test positivity rate of 0.9 percent is "well below" the 5 percent threshold set in the World Health Organization's standards for reopening.

So Patch wants to know: How are things going in your students' district? And how are parents and students feeling about the new policies and procedures?

The survey will close later this week, and then we'll post results. The survey is not meant to be a scientific poll, with random sampling and margins of error, but is meant only to gauge the sentiments of our readers in an informal way.

Dave Copeland Patch's interim managing editor for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. He can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).