By Linda Borg, Providence Journal
The Senate zipped through a slew of education bills Tuesday with nary a word of dissent, except for one seemingly innocuous bill about snow days. The bill, by Sen. Roger Picard, D-Woonsocket, would get the state Department of Education out of the business of dictating how schools offer virtual classes during bad weather. The measure allows districts to offer online instruction for up to five days when schools have been shuttered by blizzards, hurricanes and the like. “Snow days used to be a lot of fun,” he said. “In Providence, we’ve seen how the experiment with Summit Learning (an online instruction platform) has gone astray. Virtual education isn’t the same. We need human teachers in the classroom.” His colleagues disagreed, passing the bill 37-1.
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