Superintendent's Newsletter

Hello, As many of you are aware of, the Commonwealth changed the metric as to how they report out which communities are in the red. The Governor announced this at his press conference last week. Below are two charts; one of the old metric and the other of the new one which highlight the changes. OLD METRIC: NEW METRIC: We will continue to use the data provided to us by the Commonwealth to monitor the situation here in Douglas. I will also be recommending a change to our phases of learning model that the School Committee adopted in September to reflect the changes. I also want to emphasize that this is just a guide and we use additional data and resources to inform our decision making.  I would also like to share with you two statements that were sent to schools and communities one from DESE which highlights some of the changes in the metric and the other from the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS). DESE With the November 6 update by the Department of Public Hea

Hello, On Friday, the Governor, along with the Board of Health and DESE released new guidance on how they will report out and interpret the data for each community. We have a meeting this week with DESE to learn more about the new metric and I will share it with you once I know more. Here is a link to the DESE website where they give a brief overview of the changes.    This week's data show: Douglas's Average Daily Case Rate: 12 per 100,000  Douglas's 14 Day Percent Posit ivity Rate: 3.5% MA  Positivity Rate - 2.3% Last week's data show: Douglas's Average Daily Case Rate: 6.84 per 100,000  Douglas's 14 Day Percent Positivity Rate: 1.97% MA  Positivity Rate - 1.8% Link To COVID Dashboard Over the last few weeks I have referenced that principals have taken feedback from you and staff and will implement some small changes to the current model. They have also finalized what their plans will be should we have to go fully remote at any point this year. The plans are