Prince George’s Public Schools CEO Monica Goldson held a town hall virtually Thursday night on reopening schools in the Maryland school system and detailed what will be expected of students as they return to in-person learning.
In particular, mask-wearing is a must.
“If the child does not adhere to CDC guidelines of wearing that mask they’re going to have to go back to the virtual learning experience,” Goldson said.
Mask-wearing will be key for parents deciding if their student should return to hybrid learning, according to Goldson. Disposable masks will be offered to students in every classroom.
Schools will also offer rapid diagnostic COVID-19 tests for both symptomatic and asymptomatic students. If students decide to continue full-time virtual learning, then they can still be a part of in-person extracurricular activities.
Families have until Feb. 28 to choose between two-day a week hybrid learning or full-time virtual learning for students.
Goldson said charter schools were included in technology and personal protective equipment purchases. She encouraged parents who currently do not have access to technology to reach out to their charter school principal. Parents also can reach out to Goldson at ceo@pgcps.org.
If your kids were looking forward to prom, that’s probably out of the question, Goldson said. But the school system is making considerations for graduation.
“We are doing our very best to plan an in-person graduation for students to be able to have the experience to walk across the stage,” Goldson said. “We’re looking at two outside venues.”
“It might be that May/June graduations will be students only and maybe one or two guests, and then we will stream the experience. Or it might just be students only and we’ll stream the whole experience with no guests.”
Over 25,000 people attended the virtual meeting.
