Return to School

return to school back to school boy on bench with backpack

Read about our 7/21 & 7/22 Information Sessions for Families of Kindergarten Students

Return to School 2020

Introduction

Our goal for the 2020-21 School Year remains to continue to provide engaging, high-quality education for all and we share DESE’s goal of the safe return of as many students as possible to in-person school settings in order to best meet students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. There are many considerations that we are focused on, including but not limited to, class schedules, remote and in-class instruction, transportation, extracurricular activities, social-distancing, and the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff.

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Communications

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has provided all districts in Massachusetts with requirements and recommendations for re-opening for the 2020-21 school year: http://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/return-to-school/guidance.docx.

The Governor, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH), and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will continue to provide directives for the safe reopening of all districts in Massachusetts. The mandates from these officials must also align with the directives from our local departments of health and public safety. The links below provide documents released by DESE. We anticipate this will be updated frequently, please check back often.

DESE’s Fall Reopening Guidance – June 25, 2020
DESE’s Message about Summer 2020 Special Education Services – June 7, 2020
DESE’s Required Safety Supplies for Re-Opening Schools– June 5, 2020
DESE’s Initial Guidance on Summer School – June 4, 2020

How to Contact Us

We encourage you to read DESE’s Fall Reopening Guidance document (released June 25th) at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/return-to-school/guidance.docx. If you have questions and suggestions about returning to school, please submit them on our Contact Us Form at https://www.hps.holyoke.ma.us/about-us/contact/. Although we are unable to respond to every email, we will ensure that our reopening leadership team considers every question and suggestion.

Previous HPS communications from the 2019-2020 school year regarding COVID-19 can be found here.