BERLIN – Though the county’s public schools are currently providing instruction virtually, officials are planning to begin bringing students back to school buildings Jan. 4.
Worcester County Public Schools Superintendent Lou Taylor, who was appointed in 2016 and recently agreed to negotiate a new four-year contract with the school board, talked about plans for a gradual return to in-person instruction—as well as the challenges associated with operating schools during the COVID-19 pandemic — with The Dispatch on Tuesday.
Q. Worcester County Public Schools is back in stage one of its reopening plan until Jan. 4, 2021. School administrations are currently calling around to students in the first wave to return on Jan. 4. When do you think the call will be made on if schools will actually re-open to in-person instruction then? If the statistics don’t change, is there concern that date will have to be pushed back?
A. There’s always a concern. Every day I’m concerned about the metrics, I’m concerned about the safety and welfare of our kids and our employees. We will be taking a look at a variety of things, the metrics being one of them. And just to see when we feel that it’s safe. We are going through right now with our staffs, a fairly intense training program for them. And that’s all out of wanting them to be comfortable so that when we start back, we’re practicing good [safety measures], we’re making good decisions about wearing masks all the time, social distancing, handwashing and hygiene, to make sure that that is at the top of our to do list every single day, as we work through the buildings with the people inside of our buildings.
And it’s my hope that by us doing this, even with the metrics maybe a little higher than they should be and again, we don’t know what that cut off is at this point, the recommendation cut off is 5% and 15 cases per 100,000. That’s what the state has said all across this state, but there’s been no recommendation that you can’t put kids back in school with those numbers.
Yeah everything is for the kids, everyone is worried about the kids as they eat tide pods and get more stupid! But remember higher taxes are for the kids!