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Additionally, the state has moved to cancel all statewide standardized testing. Education commissioner Angelica Infante-Green submitted a waiver with the Federal Department of Education to suspend the testing late last week.
The waiver would cancel the RICAS, the standardized testing used to measure achievement in grades 3-8 in math and English, as well as the SATs and PSATs used in high school. In the request, State Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green wrote it is "not possible" to administer standardized tests due to the extensive school closures.
Per the Governor’s announcement, school buildings will remain closed though at least April, though that could also be extended. Raimondo says she’s making decisions related to the closure one month at a time, instead of announcing a closure through the end of the year.
“I am confident that we’ve got it in us to do this for the next month, and to do a great job at it,” Raimondo said Monday.
Over the last week, thousands of school children and their teachers have been logging onto online classes and completing work through web programs like Google classroom. The transition has not been without its challenges.
“I’m not going to sugar coat this, there’s nothing easy about this,” Raimondo said Monday. “It’s difficult, it’s disruptive, particularly for the most vulnerable. But as I said when I made the decision, some learning is better than no learning.”
Some of those challenges have included family access to technology and to the internet.
Districts across the state distributed hundreds of laptops to students. Providence loaned out thousands of Google-brand Chromebooks. School staff are still trying to deliver laptops to some families that do not yet have them.
Philanthropic groups and telecommunications companies have stepped in to help provide wifi -- though at the start of distance learning the state did not have a count of how many students would need it.
On Monday, the Governor announced that the major cellular service providers would allow all users to turn on the hotspot feature of smartphones -- which creates a wifi network through the phone -- at no charge through mid-May.
