Wilmington School Officials Address Plans To Go Fully-Remote

WILMINGTON, MA – At Tuesday night's School Committee meeting, school officials provided an update to the school district's reopening plans, highlighting the need to move to a fully-remote plan by mid-October.

According to the presentation, 25-30 percent of school districts in the state are operating under a remote learning model, including nearby districts such as Reading, Arlington, Rockport and Salem.

In addressing concerns about readjusting the reopening plan so close to the start of school, officials said there have been concerns about the availability of staffing for in-person learning for several positions. A number of staff members have notified the district they will be taking a leave of absence or will not be able to work in person this school year, and opening the school remotely will allow the district to ensure full staffing, officials said.

Officials also said negotiations with staff were finalized shortly before Labor Day, which gave staff little time to communicate whether they planned to take a leave of absence.

"It became clear that if we opened up in a hybrid model we. may not have sufficient staff to receive students," school officials said.

Other concerns include a recent report from an independent engineering firm about the HVAC systems of the eight schools in the district which said the buildings were all safe to occupy but included recommendations for optimization of the systems during a pandemic. These recommendations include installing a portable HEPA filtration unit in each classroom and learning space during cold weather where windows cannot be left open. To address this, the district has placed orders for nearly 400 portable HEPA units.

As of Tuesday, the district's goal is to transition fully to hybrid learning by mid-October.

An earlier version of this story misstated district plans. It has been corrected.