Around Town
LETTER: Barely Meeting the Minimum is Not Good Enough for Watertown Students
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The following letter was sent by a group of Watertown parents called WPS Parents for Moving School Forward:
While school districts across Massachusetts are presenting their communities with joyous plans to return elementary students to school full time by the state required date of April 5 or earlier, Watertown is setting itself up to again lag behind in providing students access to public school. Our community has been informed of a plan that would put elementary students in school for only half days starting April 5 until an eventual return to full time April 26. As this approach is contrary to the back to school full time by April 5 mandate that the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has recently announced, WPS is now in the process of asking DESE is this is allowable. As best as we can understand, WPS is arguing to DESE that if we do half days for most of April, but regular full days for the rest of the year after that, then over the full 10 weeks remaining we will end up with an average that meets the state minimum hourly per-day requirements and therefore should be permitted to delay full time return. Whether DESE allows this or not, it is a bad choice for the students of Watertown.