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Massachusetts Elementary School Students Return To Classrooms Amid COVID-19 Uptick

Socially distanced classroom seating during a COVID-19 pandemic.
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Socially distanced classroom seating during a COVID-19 pandemic.

Many Massachusetts public elementary schools are now returning to full-time in-person learning. But with all the health protocols, that classroom experience won't be nearly the same as it was before the pandemic.

Last week, schools reported more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff. That's the most yet in the state. But officials have argued that transmission is largely not occurring in schools.

Matt Murphy of State House News Service joins us to talk about how big of a test this coming week might be for the Baker administration.

Matt Murphy, State House News Service: It's huge. And Governor Baker is not alone among governors around the country. The New York Times wrote over the weekend about Governor Baker being one of several governors pushing schools to return to the classroom after months and months of remote learning, which many experts feel is detrimental to kids.

The increase in the number of cases reported in schools, coinciding with what we're seeing, is an uptick across the state. More than 2,200 new cases were reported on Saturday. We'll see the Sunday numbers from Easter later on.

The trend lines in Massachusetts are going in the wrong direction. Hospitals still have capacity to handle those who are getting sick and there is concern about variants. But these next few weeks, as vaccinations are expected to ramp up, the governor is going to be looking and hoping that they can start to control these numbers. And that includes in schools, where he's invested a good deal of his own political capital in pushing schools to reopen and bring students back.

Many of these cases, like you said, could be occurring elsewhere and just happening to school people, teachers, staff, students. But they're going to hope and look to take every precaution they can to avoid transmission in these school buildings, many of which are older type buildings.

The state's top finance deputy, Michael Heffernan, is set to testify this week about a dizzying array of federal funding sources that are plowing tens of billions of dollars into Massachusetts. Will Heffernan tell lawmakers anything they don't already know?

Potentially. This economic stimulus package that passed the House, the American Rescue Plan, is full of so many pots of money, and so much money, that it can be difficult at times to just wrap your head around it.

Last week, the same committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Hunt of Dorchester, welcomed an official with the National Economic Council from the White House to testify. They said that by May 10, the Treasury Department should have more very specific rules about how this money can be spent, which will give state officials a greater deal of comfort in laying out how they want to allocate this money. But there are still so many buckets.

And we learned last week that between the economic stimulus package that passed in December, signed by President Trump, then this new one signed by President Biden, there is close to a billion new dollars going into rental assistance.

This is allowing the Baker administration to greatly pump up their eviction diversion program, to try to keep people in their homes who are still struggling with paying their rents because of workforce issues and their own health. So there could be a number of new programs like this, getting infusions of cash, that we could learn about from Secretary Heffernan. It'll be an interesting one to watch.

You reported quite a bit in the past week about student loans and the debate on the federal level, including a number of Massachusetts Democrats, about whether to forgive debt. What should we be looking for in the coming days?

U.S. Senator Warren, Representative Ayanna Pressley and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey are all loudly calling for President Biden to use his executive authority to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt.

They see this is not only an equity issue — one that will help low-income students climb out of debt that they took on to go to college — but also one that could help jump-start the economy as we try and come out of this pandemic, allowing people saddled with debt to put it into their businesses, to use that money to buy new homes, to make purchases in the economy.

The White House said last week that President Biden was considering his options, and that he hadn't actually ruled this off the table, as he had once suggested that he had asked for Congress to forgive $10,000. But they are waiting for a legal memo from the U.S. Department of Education.

We'll be watching to see if that comes, and how quickly the president acts. This is probably not something that's going to happen immediately, but student debt, I think, is an issue that we're not going to see go away soon.

The legislature has tried to address this by passing a student borrowers' bill of rights to make student loan carriers aware of their responsibilities to their borrowers. I think this is something we're going to continue to see politicians talk about as we come out of this pandemic and look towards the recovery.

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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