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Some parents say there’s been little guidance on at-home education

Governor Charlie Baker announced school in Massachusetts will be out until at least May, so what does this mean for your children? Boston 25 has been working to find out how the state is planning to handle education at home.

“There really hasn’t been much guidance on what I should be doing to help the kids get through this,” parent Peter Wilson told Boston 25 News.

Many schools have been doing some sort of online engagement between teachers and students, but parents say that has been changing in many school districts because the superintendents say not everyone can take part.

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The governor says these education questions are being dealt with at the school district level.

"My view is we should try to fight and figure out some way to make it possible to get the kind of education they are going to need, to take the next step," said Baker.

The state Department of Education sent guiding principles to the districts recommending home learning programs that focus on the safety and well-being of students and work to adopt a remote learning model - that does not mean it has to be online.

State education also advised the schools the program should be at least half the length of the regular school day and reinforce skills already taught in class with the goal of deepening those skills.

Brockton Schools Superintendent’s Office told us “Due to relentless budget cuts over the past decade, our district is not currently set up for online learning or able to provide devices to each of our more than 16,000 students.”

Over the next few days, the school district says they will be identifying families who do not have laptops or desktop computers at home.

“One of the challenges we’re facing is that all of our BPS devices would be needed to administer MCAS so we are awaiting a state ruling on MCAS before we can begin to distribute them.”

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