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FRAMINGHAM – Superintendent of Schools Bob Tremblay announced today, December 17, that student may begin hybrid learning in mid to late January, if the metrics in the City of Framingham drop.

“A return to in-person learning and the start-up of extracurricular activities has been our shared dream since last spring. With a weekly PCR testing protocol for our in-person staff already in place, a COVID-19 vaccine scheduled to be available to educators as early as February, and with broad community vaccine availability later this spring, there is a sense of hope that we have long craved<‘ wrote Tremblay.

“By faithfully attending to the many well-known risk-mitigation efforts like mask-wearing, hand-washing, and physical-distancing, we have the potential to return to some version of in-person teaching and learning in the weeks ahead,” said the Superintendent in an email to families.

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What follows is a quick-reference dashboard that aims to guide our return-to-school efforts so that we can all work from a shared understanding of frequently used terms, public health metrics, and our best efforts to layout a detailed return schedule.

All of this, of course, is a work in progress.

“Your continued flexibility and patience is very much appreciated and feedback about what information would help to improve this communication is welcomed,” wrote the Superintendent.

KEY TERMS

Phase I: Students and staff who attended school, in-person, starting in October.

Phase II: Students and staff who attended school, in-person, starting in November.

Phase III: Students and staff who were scheduled to return to school in December, but who did not return due to the shift to remote in consideration of the community public health conditions.

Phase IV: All remaining FPS students and staff not included in Phases I, II, and III.

In Person (Schedule): A schedule where students are receiving instruction in person in a classroom setting from the school.

Remote (Schedule): A schedule where students are receiving instruction from a location outside the school setting via the computer (virtually).

Hybrid (Schedule): A schedule where students are receiving instruction on a rotating schedule that includes both in person and remote experiences.

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Concurrent Classroom Model: A model in which students attend class in person and others attend virtually. The teacher in a concurrent classroom attempts to meet the needs of the students in class and online simultaneously.

Synchronous Instruction (live):

Synchronous Instruction

  • Occurs in real-time, with participants doing something together or “in sync” with others;
  • May include Zoom/Google Meets meetings or be streamed; live video is not required for synchronous learning;
  • May include scheduled learning experiences, assessments, or collaboration to be completed at the same time as others; and/or
  • May provide additional structure, accountability, and opportunities to engage with others in the learning community.

Asynchronous Instruction (not live):

Asynchronous Instruction

  • Occurs on one’s own time or pace, with no requirements to be in lock-step with others;
  • Allows students to work independently, or potentially with others, at a flexible pace that meets their individual needs;
  • May include experiences, assessments, or collaboration to be completed within a window of time, but not necessarily in real-time with others; and/or
  • Allows teachers to work synchronously with one or more students while others are engaged in asynchronous learning tasks.

Asynchronous instruction does NOT mean that a student is “offline”, as in not engaging virtually with content.

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RETURN-TO-SCHOOL DASHBOARD

The illustration below includes a couple of key community metrics that will impact our return-to-school. In addition, the district will work closely with the Framingham Department of Public Health to constantly assess both the risk (e.g., in-school transmission and upward data trends) and risk mitigation efforts (e.g., weekly testing and downward data trends) which will also impact the target return dates for Phase I & II and Phase III & IV.

Big picture

By editor

Susan Petroni is the former editor for SOURCE. She is the founder of the former news site, which as of May 1, 2023, is now a self-publishing community bulletin board. The website no longer has a journalist but a webmaster.