BOSTON — When Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday rolled out a new color-coded metric of COVID-19 risk levels in each Massachusetts community, he suggested those new labels would play a role in how cities and towns think about the approaching school year.
“If you’re in a green or a white community, I can’t imagine a good reason not to go back, whether it’s full-time or some sort of a hybrid, because for all intents and purposes you meet all the benchmarks that are being used across the country and across New England to make decisions about whether it’s safe to go back to school,” Baker said, referring to the two colors assigned to lower risk levels.
That idea has now been formalized into new guidelines from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, ahead of a Friday deadline for districts to submit their reopening plans to the state.
Districts must file plans for three different models of instruction -- all remote, all in-person, and a hybrid of the two -- and local school committees make the call on which model will be used to start the academic year.
On Tuesday, after Baker announced the new red, yellow, green and white risk designations, Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeff Riley wrote a message to district leaders, providing them with guidance on how to interpret the new assessment system for a school setting. The guidance, Riley said, was “developed in consultation with our infectious disease physicians and other public health experts.”
The colors are assigned based on a municipality's COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 residents over two weeks, ranging from green for fewer than four to red for more than eight. Communities assigned a white or "unshaded" designation are those with small populations and fewer than five cases within the last 14 days.
Riley’s memo listed his department’s “expectation” for which learning model communities should use, based on their assigned color, and said districts should also monitor local test positivity rates and whether cases are increasing or decreasing locally.
In "red" communities, the department expects schools to operate remotely. The expectation is hybrid for "yellow" communities, or remote if there are extenuating circumstances. Communities assigned green or white colors are expected to open schools on a full-time in person model, but could do hybrid under extenuating circumstances, according to the guidance.
"It is our expectation that districts' learning models will follow this color-coded metric unless there are extenuating circumstances identified after consultation with local boards of health," Riley wrote. "This includes reviewing additional metrics, such as whether cases are increasing or decreasing, the local test positivity rate, and other contextual factors."
The memo said the department will issue additional guidance for regional schools and others that draw students from multiple cities and towns.
With the summer winding down and reopening plans due in days, many districts had made decisions before the new metrics were announced.
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In Brockton, which is yellow and has a positive test rate of 5.1 percent, school committee members voted Tuesday to start the school year remotely. Somerville has also announced plans for a remote start, and that city falls into the green category and has a positive rate of 1.1 percent.
Boston, home to the state’s largest school district, is classified yellow. Mayor Martin Walsh said Wednesday that the city’s schools “will either be starting with a hybrid model or a period of all-remote learning.”
Riley wrote that districts “may choose to make immediate adjustments to initial fall reopening plans based on this data,” or may decide to “wait for multiple data reports and allow for further time for consultation before making these updates.”
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