As many as 7,900 more Boston students will be invited to return to school next week as part of the Boston Public School system’s hybrid school re-opening plan, Mayor Marty Walsh announced Thursday.
On March 1, the returning student group, Pre-K through grade 3, will join the high in-person priority needs population that has been attending since BPS launched its voluntary re-opening in November.
Pointing to the city’s downward trending COVID-19 metrics, Walsh said the students could return safely.
“This is a big step for us. The [city’s] positivity rate is in the right place. The trend's going in the right direction, so getting our kids in school now is the next important step that we can have for the education for our children,” he said.
Up until this point, approximately 7,800 students have been invited back to school since the district's latest re-opening last November.
A BPS official said Thursday that approximately half of the system’s eligible students are attending in-person while the other half have opted to continue learning remotely. That balance is expected to continue into the next school re-opening phase.
In what will likely be one of his final addresses as the mayor of Boston, Walsh also extoled the city’s Resiliency Fund, a philanthropy vehicle launched last March to help support Bostonians through the pandemic. To date, the fund has raised about $34 million.
“To everyone from the bottom of my heart, thank you for what we’ve been able to accomplish through this fund. Boston is a strong resilient city, full of strong resilient people," he said. "We look out for one another and when we’re faced with a challenge, we rise to the occasion and we rise to the occasion together."
