Anyone Brookline vs Newton schools based on their Covid reopening plan?

[Anonymous]

Will be looking to relocate to the Boston suburbs over the next year with middle/high schoolers. Should I read anything into Brookline school district to be fully remote vs Newton's plan for hybrid (decision may not yet be final?) in terms of the competence or caliber of the school administrators?

They are adjacent towns, so I'm assuming both have similarly low Covid positivity rate and numbers. Interesting to observe as an outsider.

[Anonymous]

Do you think one of those decisions is unreasonable? If so feel free to make further assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Not making any assumptions or judgments! I know both Brookline and Newton have highly regarded schools and trust that they have considered all the options carefully. But can't help but wonder about the factors that might be at play - physical facility constraints, K-8 vs separate K-5 & 6-8, flexibility of getting additional funding for tech or HVAC or tents, demographics, etc? This working mom just wants to land where it's easier to anticipate and plan, god forbid, in case the pandemic lingers until fall 2021!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not making any assumptions or judgments! I know both Brookline and Newton have highly regarded schools and trust that they have considered all the options carefully. But can't help but wonder about the factors that might be at play - physical facility constraints, K-8 vs separate K-5 & 6-8, flexibility of getting additional funding for tech or HVAC or tents, demographics, etc? This working mom just wants to land where it's easier to anticipate and plan, god forbid, in case the pandemic lingers until fall 2021!

Schools in MA didn’t need to recreate plans until like August 15th. It was way later than when Fairfax announced. So a lot of schools in MA are doing a lot of last minute hiring bc a lot of teachers took the year off due to their district’s plans. MA economy was hit really hard. They say it had the highest unemployment rate due to covid. 1 in 4 restaurants closed throughout the state. I think the schools will face worse budget cuts next year.

So the schools in Virginia announced a plan at least a whole month ahead of MA. MA schools were also allowed to shorten the school year to 170 days for kids (normally 180) so that the teachers could have ten planning days without it adding days to the teacher’s contract. If it snows here they add a day on in June. There’s no built in snow days. I think it’s way better to be a teacher in MA and the schools are better, but the schools up here were WAY slower with announcing their final plans for covid so I wouldn’t consider them better at planning so parents can plan.

[Anonymous]

* release, not recreate

[Anonymous]

OP, you're going to twist yourself into knots with that type of thinking. There's no way to predict what's going to happen next year. Both Newton and Brookline are high-income suburbs of Boston with excellent schools. You can't go wrong in either town.

[Anonymous]

Both are very good. I would just plan to hire help if you need. You can definitely afford if these are your options