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Tensions Rise Among Massachusetts Education Officials As State Orders School Reopening

For months, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has been trying to get school districts to allow kids back for in-person learning. On Friday, a state board voted to give Education Commissioner Jeff Riley some more power to make that happen. 

That wasn't without controversy.

Matt Murphy of the State House News Service joins us to talk about the details.

Matt Murphy, State House News Service: The governor has been encouraging schools to bring kids back, if possible — depending on the local health situation on the ground in those communities — for months now.

And he's tried to provide the tools that he thought would encourage that. There's been money for PPE and other supplies. They've started a pool testing pilot program, and that's expanded to many districts to increase testing in schools.

But this effort to give the commissioner the authority to force schools back to full-time, in-person learning is the strongest move yet we've seen from the governor. And the Board of Education authorized this emergency power for Commissioner Jeff Riley on Friday on an 8-to-3 vote.

This would give the commissioner the power to tell districts that remote learning hours no longer count toward the amount of instructional hours they need to complete the school year. And he is looking to bring back elementary school students by April.

They will move to older students later in the school year, with an eye toward full, in-person learning for all students by the start of the next school year, in the fall.

Teachers pushed back against some of this, arguing in part that they needed to be vaccinated. The state took a big step, pushed by the federal government — by President Biden — last week to make vaccines available for teachers. But there are still concerns about local control, whether or not districts are better equipped to make the decisions for the public health of their students and their staff, rather than the state.

There are also concerns the state could be rushing things a little bit here.

Carrie Healy, NEPM: After what seemed like a slow start for the legislature, the Massachusetts House and Senate are both off to the races. One piece of legislation the House leadership is especially keen to get enacted soon is a foster care bill. What's in that bill?

This is a bill that could be coming up as soon as this week. We have not yet seen a timeline from the speaker for when he wants to put it on the floor. But he did say last week he wanted to put it on the floor immediately.

This is a bill filed by Rep. Paul Donato of Medford and Rep. Denise Garlick of Needham that almost passed last session. It came very close, passed both branches in different versions, and they just couldn't sort out the details at the end of the session.

It would impose a number of new reporting requirements on the Department of Children and Families — new, internal review processes for situations such as when the department might be ready to unify a child with their family.

It also includes what supporters are calling a foster parent's bill of rights. This would support foster parents, help the state recruit more foster families, and make sure the state is providing those families with training and information about the child they are taking into their home and rights such as these.

And to get to this point, didn't this bill take kind of an unusual route, jumping some usual procedures?

Early in this session, we've seen this new speaker take this step a couple times now. Sometimes the legislative session can be slow to start as committees get formed, the new chairs get to know each other. They establish the rules of the committee. They hold hearings on the thousands of bills that have been filed.

But we've seen the new speaker of the Massachusetts House, Ron Mariano, circumvent that process several times now to re-pass the climate initiative, and to pass a home-rule petition by the city of Boston to cancel a potential special election for mayor.

He now appears to be doing it here. This bill does not appear headed to have a public hearing.

It is very similar to what passed last session, but there are small changes. There are new lawmakers who may be unfamiliar with this, but the speaker appears ready to avoid having a public hearing on this bill and push it straight to the floor.

He did this as well with a extension of vote-by-mail rights last week. When that bill got to the Senate, we saw some objections raised. The Senate opened a time period that closes Monday, actually, to submit written testimony on the extension of vote-by-mail through the end of June.

So there has been some response there, to a lack of a public hearing, when it reached the Senate. We'll see what happens with this foster care bill.

Keep up here with Beacon Hill In 5.

Carrie Healy hosts the local broadcast of "Morning Edition" at NEPM. She also hosts the station’s weekly government and politics segment “Beacon Hill In 5” for broadcast radio and podcast syndication.
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