Onward!

The Baker-Polito Administration has finally announced a plan for broad COVID testing of public school students, teachers, and staff. It will begin in about a month. Local higher education institutions, and some local K-12 systems, realized last summer that broad testing of students and faculty was necessary to safely re-open face-to-face education in the fall. Why it’s taken the Baker-Polito Administration this long to figure out that a similar COVID testing approach was necessary for K-12 education is a mystery. We all know kids learn best with face-to-face instruction and the Administration has been pushing communities to re-open schools. But parents, teachers, and students deserve to know if being in school is safe. They also need to know what steps will be taken to protect them if a member of…

Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito, Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts (PDM) strongly urges you to establish a more inclusive, broad-based Reopening Advisory Commission that should include: Experts in public health, who should play a leadership role, such as:Dr. Ashish Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, and/or others from the Harvard School of Public HealthDr. Donald BerwickRepresentatives of workers, particularly those in essential, front-line jobs interacting with the public on a routine basis, including nurses and teachers in early care and education, K-12 schools, and higher educationRepresentatives of populations that have been most negatively affected by COVID-19 such as:People of colorPeople from geographic areas with high COVID-19 rates, e.g., ChelseaPeople from densely populated urban areas, e.g., Boston, Lawrence, Holyoke, etc.People in nursing homes, including the Soldiers’ Homes, and other…