SAUGUS — The Saugus School Committee Policy Subcommittee will hold a meeting Thursday to discuss policy logistics ahead of the district’s transition to hybrid learning January 19.
Board member Arthur Grabowski said Wednesday that the virtual meeting’s primary focus will center around updating the town’s school return policy, as well establishing a formal remote/hybrid transition plan, which will set guidelines for families who decide they want to switch from remote learning to hybrid, or vice versa.
“We want to make sure we have a unified set of standards and procedures across the district so that everybody is under the same expectations,” Grabowski said. “We’ll do as much as we can to make sure (it’s) a safe and healthy environment for all concerned.”
Families have long awaited news of the district’s return date — announced by the School Committee Dec. 29 — since schools went completely remote at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last March.
Saugus officials, whose hybrid plan was approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in July, initially planned to have students return to their brick and mortar classrooms in September.
When virus cases in the community began to soar over the summer, however, the decision was made to push back the district’s return date indefinitely.
Since then, Grabowski said DESE has updated its requirements for districts transitioning to hybrid plans, meaning Saugus’ plan will need to be adjusted accordingly.
“Things have changed dramatically because DESE has come out with new rules and regulations in terms of what they call ‘time on learning,’” Grabowski said. “(Districts) submitted our plans, and DESE reviewed those plans and saw that those plans were inadequate state-wide, and they came down with new regulations we have to abide by.”
In an earlier interview with The Item, Committee Chair Thomas Whittredge previously praised Grabowski’s policy-making record, calling him “the best guy for the job.
“He’s been around for a long time and he’s seen what works and what doesn’t work,” Whittredge said. “That definitely helps.”
Students will have the option to stay remote or join their classmates for hybrid learning, and Grabowski said one of his biggest concerns was that families would attempt to change their decisions past January 19.
“You can’t just do that on a whim … We don’t want the confusion,” he said. “We’ll set up some logical steps as to when and how you get to move between one (version of learning) and the other.
“We don’t want classrooms to be disrupted by having a child in there one day and gone the next. We want to bring some consistency, so we’ll be discussing what the parameters will be for doing that.”
Superintendent David DeRuosi must also submit the district’s final plans to the state on January 19.
Those who wish to submit public comments ahead of time can do so by emailing them to Grabowski at [email protected].
“We’ve got to come back to some form of normalcy,” Grabowski said. “We have to do the best we can.”