Low-risk communities should go back to in-person learning, Gov. Baker says

BOSTON — Governor Charlie Baker is pushing low virus risk communities to go back to school in person.  

Letters have gone out to more than a dozen districts with the directive. Some school districts say they feel like they are being bullied to do in-person learning, but Baker has said that is not the case.

The goal, he says, is to get kids back into the classroom if community spread is low in a particular city or town.  

“In-person learning is especially [good] for young kids, it’s a critical part of their education and social development and we want to know what your plan is to get back,” said Baker. "I don’t think that is bullying. I think that is completely appropriate to ask on behalf of the people of those communities and especially the kids.”

The weekly town-by-town breakdown of COVID-19 infection rates in city and towns across the Commonwealth started going out weeks ago. The state says communities with low community spread should be taking advantage of that.

“It would be unfortunate if later in the year a district had to go remote because the virus spiked back up and they recognized, ‘Wow, we could have had kids go back for a couple of months and maybe six months,’” said Department of Early and Secondary Education Commissioner Ed Riley.

Quincy’s Superintendent of Schools, Kevin Mulvey, was at Baker’s briefing and told Boston 25 they expedited their school reopening so the high school is going back hybrid about a month earlier than planned. Mulvey says Quincy has been in the “green," low risk category for weeks.  

We asked if the state was adding any pressure to their decision, but Mulvey said no.  

“Absolutely not,” said Mulvey. "The decision was really community based. It was also the fact that Quincy has been consistently at least over the past month in the green.”

Baker also said this directive is based on what we know about the virus right now. If contact tracing reveals a high rate of community spread in schools, this could all go in the opposite direction.

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