NORTHAMPTON — With all public elementary and middle schools in Massachusetts ordered to reopen for full-time, in-person learning next month, state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa has co-filed a bill that would push this date to after spring break and prioritize all who work in schools for COVID-19 vaccination.
On Tuesday, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced that elementary schools must reopen for full-time, in-person learning by April 5, while for middle schools must do so by April 28.
A date has yet to be set for high schools, but the DESE has said they will receive two weeks’ notice and should begin planning for reopening.
This guidance is problematic for several reasons, said Sabadosa, D-Northampton, who teamed with Rep. Jim Hawkins, D-Attleboro, to file the bill. In the past, for example, school vacations have led to increased COVID-19 spread.
“We’ve seen time and time again when we have school vacation week, the case numbers go up,” Sabadosa said in an interview, “so we’re saying, let’s not do this until we have this vacation week behind us.”
And while state officials announced teachers can receive COVID-19 vaccines beginning Thursday, not all will have gotten even a first dose by the required reopening date.
The state has set aside four days — March 27, April 3, April 10 and April 11 — for vaccinating only K-12 educators, child care workers and other school staff at mass vaccination sites. But two of these dates come after the elementary school reopening, Sabadosa noted.
To remedy this issue, Sabadosa said, the state must create an effective plan for vaccinating not just teachers, but all staff members who will work in-person at schools.
Vaccinating all staff is particularly important because DESE guidelines fall short the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standard of maintaining 6 feet of physical distancing between students — the department allows a minimum of 3 feet of separation.
The bill does not seek to prevent a return to in-person learning, Sabadosa said, but “gives everybody a little bit of time to hit pause and figure out how to do this as safely as possible.”
Sabadosa also criticized the department’s regulations for taking decision-making power away from those who know their school districts and surrounding areas best.
“One of the hardest parts of this is that the commissioner is not an elected official,” Sabadosa said. “Our elected officials are local School Committees, and all authority to make these decisions has been taken away from them” by DESE.
The blanket approach also fails to consider the unique challenges faced by school districts throughout the state, Sabadosa said, such as varying transmission levels and access to vaccines.
Some local school districts anticipate more difficulty than others in adjusting to this guidance. The Amherst-Pelham district, for instance, has only offered in-person learning to the youngest and highest-need students since March 2020, and the new rules have left school officials scrambling to prepare logistically for a full return. Hampshire Regional Schools, meanwhile, anticipate few issues, with about 80% of students already in school on a hybrid basis.
In a statement, the Amherst-Pelham Education Association’s Executive Board echoed several of Sabadosa’s concerns.
The group is “disturbed that Commissioner Jeffrey Riley, under the direction of Gov. Baker, has overruled the right of local school committees and local unions to make decisions about their districts’ learning and working conditions while ignoring CDC recommendations regarding distancing and ventilation requirements,” according to a Amherst-Pelham Education Association statement.
In response to similar concerns from various teachers’ unions, Tim Buckley, a senior adviser for Gov. Charlie Baker, said in a statement the administration is “dismayed that despite reasonable efforts to prioritize educator vaccinations, the teachers’ unions continue to demand the commonwealth take hundreds of thousands of vaccines away from the sickest, oldest and most vulnerable residents in Massachusetts and divert them to the unions’ members, 95% of which are under age 65.”
With three vaccines available to the public and the end of the school year approaching in June, Sabadosa said now is not the time to rush a full-time, in-person opening for all schools.
“We’re so far into this pandemic,” she said. “We can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not at the end of the tunnel. We’re just sort of rushing things just because we’re getting closer, which I think is inappropriate.”
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.