In the past three weeks:

• The percentage of students residing in communities at moderate to high risk increased steadily from 69% to 73% to the highest level to date of 79% this week.
• 13 of our districts have been in the high and/or moderate risk categories at least 2 of the last 3 weeks.
• 11 of our sending districts have seen an increase in average daily case rates in at least 2 of the last 3 weeks; and
• 9 of our districts have seen an increase in the % of positive cases in at least 2 of the last 3 weeks.
• Positivity rates for municipalities in our sending districts continue to be higher than the state averages.

As a result, the administration recommended beginning our Hybrid phase-in model no earlier than Monday, November 2, 2020.  This would allow us to assess data beyond this week’s high/moderate risk rates with the hope of seeing the necessary positive trends to bring students back to the classrooms. 

It is a unanimous recommendation from the senior leadership team to continue Remote Learning at this time.

Assuming positive results over the next few weeks:

• Week of November 2nd:  Grades K, 1, 5, and 6 Hybrid students return to campus through the cohort model.
• Week of November 9th:  Grades 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, and 10 Hybrid students return to campus the through cohort model.
• Week of November 16th:  Grade 11 Hybrid students return to campus through the cohort model.
• Week of November 30th:  Grade 12 hybrid students return to campus through the cohort model.
• Remote Only students will continue learning through the remote model throughout this time.

Discussion on the proposal to delay the start of the hybrid model included:

• The states definition of Grey, Green, Yellow and Red designations
• Current health metrics in Massachusetts
• Current recovery rates (once ill) compared to early spring
• Giving teachers a few more weeks to work with Google classroom prior to having students live and on line at the same time
• Quality of virtual learning Spring 2020 vs Fall 2020
• The state has recommended that FRCS follow our largest sending district of Brockton (35% of our school population) as our sole indicator of our status but allows us to view other communities. The school's administration and Board of Trustees are monitoring all of our sending districts and evaluating them based on a weighted distribution of our school's population.
• In order to consider re-opening in a Hybrid model, we would need to see a three week trend of decreasing infection rates based on the states direction to schools. 
• The board of trustees are state volunteers and as such we are obligated to follow the criteria of the state regardless of our personal agreement with the criteria and how they are defined
• Moving Trustee's meetings to Thursday night will we allow us to monitor the health data released by the states on Wednesday evenings.

Reference: 

• Gray = Free to open for in person learning
• Green = Hybrid Only
• Yellow = Remote or Hybrid depending on your schools unique characteristics
• Red = Remote only

Matthew Yezukevich and Karen Calvert reviewed a draft Request For Proposals (RFP) to find a search firm to aid in the search for a new executive director for the school.  The proposed timeline is to post on 09OCT2020 so that proposals are returned to the school by 21OCT2020.