Published April 22, 2020

By MARK SARDELLA 

School buildings in Massachusetts will remain closed through the end of the academic year, but remote learning will continue, Gov. Charlie Baker announced yesterday.

There hasn’t been any strong guidance about how to operate schools safely as the state works to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the Republican governor said.

“We believe therefore that students cannot safety return to school,” Baker said. All non-emergency child care programs will remain closed until June 29, he added.

The impact of the decision has hit local high school seniors and their families hard.

“Our seniors are really hit hard that they aren’t able to finish the school year as they had planned,” Wakefield School Superintendent Doug Lyons said today. “The COVID-19 health crisis has precipitated loss after loss. Our families have been so impacted by this. We’re all trying to figure out the new normal with no playbook.”

Lyons said that since the governor’s decision was announced, school officials have heard from many concerned high school seniors and families. Lyons said that no decisions have been made to cancel high school graduation and other traditional year end activities. He said that school officials plan to get together and figure out what they can do safely and when they can do it.

Lyons said that school officials will be working with all stakeholders to craft a couple of different plans with safety as the foremost consideration. He noted that Wakefield Memorial High School principal Amy McLeod will be collaborating with students and parents to come up with the best possible plan.

“Our seniors are remarkable kids who are far more resilient than we give them credit for,” Lyons said.

Regarding remote learning for the rest of the year, Lyons noted that Wakefield schools were ready to hit the ground running with its pre-existing “Learn Anywhere” program when schools closed five weeks ago. Some other school districts, awaiting guidance from the state, only initiated remote learning a couple of weeks ago. Lyons said that he was proud of the fact that Wakefield’s Learn Anywhere program has been in place during the entire five weeks that schools have been shut down.

He added that the Department of Education and the Education Commissioner will be putting out guidance regarding changes that they would like to see to remote learning to ensure that students are being instructed in ways that will best prepare them for returning to school in the fall.

Lyons stressed that remote learning is no replacement for classroom education, but he stressed that Wakefield will take the guidance from the state and make sure that those standards are incorporated into its remote learning program over the remaining eight weeks of the school year.

Lyons expressed appreciation fro the support the schools have gotten from families and acknowledged the difficulty families are facing with parents having to juggle working from home, caring for children and managing a household.

Regarding refunds for sports and other activity fees that families have paid for programs that will not happen, Lyons said that his team is working out how to best close out the school year and budget, including all activity fees that students and families pay for.

Gov. Baker’s announcement to keep schools shuttered through June came a day after Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, suggested school officials need to devise plans to safely open schools in the new academic year.

“I also think next year when school comes back in September, it could be a very different looking situation in the classrooms,” Walsh said Monday.

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COVID-19 CASES

The number of COVID-19-related deaths in Massachusetts rose to 1,961 Tuesday. That’s an increase of 152 in the past day, according to public health officials.

More than half the total deaths, 1,059, have been reported at long-term care facilities.

There were 1,556 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday for a total of nearly 41,200 confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak.

The number of people tested has topped 175,000.

Baker said the state remains in the thick of the surge and urged people not to let up on their efforts to slow the disease’s spread.

“This is like the third or fourth quarter and we are holding our own here. Don’t let the virus win the game,” Baker said. “Play it all the way to the end.”

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LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES

Long-term care facilities would be required to report COVID-19 cases and deaths to public health officials under a bill approved Tuesday by the Massachusetts House.

The bill would mandate the Department of Public Health to make the information publicly available on its website and update it daily, including the name of the facility and number of known COVID-19 positive cases and deaths among residents and staff.

The department has been tracking confirmed COVID-19 cases at nursing homes, rest homes and skilled nursing facilities and posting the information on its website daily. The department also posts daily an aggregate number of total deaths at long-term care facilities.

The bill now heads the Massachusetts Senate.

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TRUMP IMMIGRATION ORDER

A pledge by President Donald Trump to sign an executive order “to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States” because of the coronavirus was sharply criticized by Baker, a fellow Republican.

“I’m opposed to the decision the president made. I’m opposed to the order. It doesn’t make any sense and I don’t think it makes us any safer,” Baker said Tuesday when asked about the order.

Much of the immigration system has already ground to a halt because of the pandemic.

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MUSEUM OF SCIENCE

The Museum of Science, one of the most popular cultural institutions in Massachusetts, is cutting staff and reducing salaries in response to a steep dropoff in revenue during the coronavirus pandemic, the museum’s president announced Tuesday.

The museum’s board approved furloughs for 250 staff members and layoffs for another 122 workers, President Tim Ritchie said in an emailed statement.

Remaining staff making more than $75,000 annually will take salary reductions ranging from 5% to 25%. Ritchie will take a 50% pay cut. The museum will also suspend retirement plan contributions.

The museum, which gets about 1.4 million visitors per year, closed March 12 in response to the pandemic.

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HONORING VETERANS

The U.S. and state flags at two Massachusetts veterans homes and two veterans cemeteries have been lowered to half-staff to honor those who have served, the state secretary of veterans affairs said.

The state’s soldiers homes in Holyoke and Chelsea have become epicenters of coronavirus outbreaks. Fifty-two residents of the Holyoke home who have died recently have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to state public health officials.

A dozen residents of the Chelsea home who have died recently tested positive.

Baker ordered that the flags at the homes as well as veterans cemeteries in Winchendon and Agawam “be lowered to half-staff as a mark of solemn respect and in honor of the lives of all departed veterans during this period,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Francisco Urena wrote on his Facebook page Sunday.

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HIGH-FASHION MASKS

A Massachusetts factory that usually produces high fashion is now making masks instead to help in the fight against the coronavirus.

The Joseph Abboud factory in New Bedford has committed to producing more than 100,000 masks at the facility, parent company Tailored Brands said in a statement, The Standard-Times reported.

The masks are washable and reusable but are not medical grade, Tailored Brands said, but the company hopes to eventually get approval to produce a surgical grade mask.

— Steve LeBlanc and Mark Pratt of the Associated Press contributed to this report.