Governor Phil Murphy has yet to announce plans for school reopenings. Regarding summer services for students with disabilities, known as “Extended School Year” or ESY, Murphy’s Office said on May 4th, “[t]he Administration will create a steering committee consisting of a diverse group of stakeholders in the education community to explore summer learning opportunities for all students, including school-sponsored summer programming and Extended School Year for students with disabilities.”
This steering committee has yet to weigh in. On May 19 Murphy said, according to the NJ Herald, “that the Departments of Education and Health were ‘war-gaming through what back-to-school looks like.’ He said the state would in the coming weeks provide guidance for schools assuming students go back to class.” (The rest of the Herald article describes district superintendents’ frustrations with the DOE, with one saying, “in my 13 years as a superintendent I have never seen so much dumped to schools to fend for themselves with limited, shifting, convoluted or zero guidance.”)
Yet lack of guidance is not stopping Lakewood Public Schools. In an email sent this morning to staff, Superintendent Laura Winters announced that Lakewood’s ESY programming will begin in-person on July 1st. Bus transportation will be provided and staff will practice various precautions. For example, aides will take students’ temperatures, staff will wear “face shields and face masks,” students will be “encouraged” to wear face masks, students will sit six feet apart, and hand-washing will be “frequent.”
Asbury Park just defied Murphy’s lock-down orders by allowing indoor seating in restaurants and now “are on notice,” the Governor warned today. Will he put Lakewood on notice? Stay tuned.
Here’s part of the email. I’m not printing the whole thing in order to protect anonymity.
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