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As Maine school districts develop and implement COVID safety plans, they will receive millions of dollars in financial aid from the state through the federal coronavirus relief package.
Up to $ 165 million will be distributed to school districts across the state, Governor Janet Mills announced Friday. This is about half of what Maine Commissioner of Education Pender Makin said schools across Maine need to make schools safe for students, staff and faculty. Next week, the Maine Department of Education will inform each district of the maximum allocation it could receive, according to a formula developed by the state and school superintendents, Mills said.
The Maine Department of Education and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention also released more details on Friday about the health counseling system that will help school districts determine how to resume instruction in the fall.
The Department of Education said in June that school districts should have three plans for the fall semester: a complete return to in-person education, a combination of in-person and online learning, and a fully online semester.
To determine what plan to put into action, school district leaders will use the state’s health counseling system launched Friday.
The tiered system, which will be based on COVID-19 case rates, positivity rates, and hospitalization data, will divide each county into categories based on three colors: red, yellow, and green.
A red label will indicate that the county is at high risk of spreading COVID-19 and that in-person instruction should not be conducted. The yellow label will indicate that the county is at high risk of spreading COVID-19 and that a hybrid instruction model with a partial return to in-person instruction should be adopted. A green label suggests that the county has a relatively low risk of COVID-19 and that the instruction can be adopted in person.
The county-level health system will be posted on the Department of Education website beginning in late July and updated biweekly.
School districts will not be required to follow the reopening plan recommended by their color grading, but some districts, such as Bangor and Brewer, have said they will.
The Department of Education also updated its reopening framework to reflect some required COVID-19 security protocols that school districts must implement if they choose to reopen in person, including social distancing, symptom detection, the use of facial covers, and the need for students. who feel sick to stay home.
Most school districts already have most, if not all, of these new requirements in their reopening plans, as they are based on common public health protocols.
Watch: Janet Mills talks about reopening Maine schools in the fall
