Revere Public Schools Trudging Along with Eyes on the Future

As remote learning has become the norm for Revere Public School (RPS) students and teachers, a fact has turned out that RPS seems to be ahead of the curve and is now planning for the future.

“District staff members have recently completed a comparison between our Remote Learning Plan and the Commissioner of the state’s Department on Elementary and Secondary Education’s new guidance to districts,” said RPS Superintendent Dianne Kelly. “I’m pleased to let you know that we have found a very close match. We have identified one or two standards at a couple of grade levels that teachers will add emphasis to in their posted learning activities over the next several weeks.”

While RPS seems to be on the right track to finish arguably one of the more bizarre school years in history, Kelly said RPS is looking towards a more hopeful end of the school year with some unique events planned.

“Principals and teachers are working on end of the year video tributes to celebrate students as we normally would do in person,” said Kelly. “These include 5th Grade and 8th Grade Moving-On Ceremonies, Middle School Aspirers, Senior Scholarships and Academic Awards, Underclassmen Awards, and Athletic Awards.”

Kelly said the videos will air on Revere TV as well as the School Committee’s YouTube channel and the RPS website.

“The presentations of the Junior Book Awards and the Colella Awards will be planned for the fall when we hope to be meeting in person again,” said Kelly. “The students in the class of 2020 have voted to plan for an in-person graduation event, likely still observing personal distancing, hopefully in mid to late August. We are working with the class officers on details.”

Kelly said RPS is also working on plans for staff and students to return to school to pick up personal items once the Governor lifts the Stay at Home order.

“We anticipate this will happen later in May,” said Kelly. “The schedule for seniors to pick up Caps and Gowns and yearbooks will be planned to be combined with picking up personal items from lockers. They will also be expected to drop off their Chromebooks at that time.”

As for looking towards summer programs and beyond, Kelly said RPS is still unclear about what kind of programming schools will be able to host over the summer and what next school year might look like.

“To be prepared, we are starting to think about different models including more remote learning and combinations of remote and in person classes,” said Kelly. “When we have more information about how we will be allowed to gather, we will plan an idea and information sharing event so we can have parent, student, and teacher input. We anticipate this will be in late June. If we learn that we can go back to typical learning models, we will let you know right away.”