MONTAGUE — After meeting remotely for almost a year, the Gill-Montague Regional School District School Committee briefly discussed Tuesday the possibility of returning to in-person meetings. While members were interested in meeting in person, they ultimately agreed that several drawbacks still make remote meetings preferable.
School Committee Chair Jane Oakes explained that the school district having transitioned to a hybrid class model — in which about half the student population is in the school building each day, and the other half is at home and communicates remotely — within the last month prompted her to consider whether the School Committee should also be moving away from the virtual meeting format it has used since last March.
However, she noted that meeting in person would, in some ways, be less effective for the School Committee than meeting online.
The effort and difficulty of following COVID-19 health safety guidelines was one issue Oakes mentioned, as it would be necessary for school staff to clean and monitor the School Committee’s meeting space during and after each meeting.
The other issue was that in-person meetings would be less accessible to the public, as there are still limits on the number of people that are allowed to gather inside.
In that regard, Oakes said, remote meetings are more easily accessible to the public than in-person meetings would be.
“Our role is serving the community,” Oakes said. “As difficult as the technology makes it — and I am one of the first ones to say it does not make the job easy — I do feel that we are doing our job of communicating with the community.”
Superintendent Brian Beck made similar points, noting that, with capacity limits still in place, it is imaginable that members of the public might have to be turned away from a committee meeting if the room were already at maximum capacity.
Beck added that the school would also have to coordinate with the Montague Board of Health before allowing the School Committee to meet in any of the buildings.
“I know things are going to be better, and we are eventually going to be back in person,” Beck said. “But I don’t know if this is the time to do it, for those reasons and others.”
School Committee member Bill Tomb added that, even though some people have been vaccinated, most still have not, and may not be comfortable meeting in person.
No one on the committee argued against remaining in remote meetings for the time being. The committee didn’t take any vote on the issue.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.