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Massachusetts Schools Approve Video Chat for Teachers

The school board has ratified a legal agreement which would allow for video conferencing between teachers and students. Teachers will begin utilizing video conferencing over the course of the next few days.

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(TNS) -- For the past two weeks, teachers in the Timberlane Regional School District have only been able to communicate with their students via email.

During a meeting on Tuesday, the school board ratified a legal agreement which would allow for video conferencing between teachers and students. Teachers will begin utilizing video conferencing over the course of the next few days.

Ryan Richman, the president of the Timberlane Teachers’ Association, said previously that the union wanted a memorandum of understanding, a type of legal agreement, with the district before using video conferencing to instruct students while schools in the state are closed due to the spread of COVID-19.

“We did this purposefully to proceed with caution,” said Sandra Allaire, who is a teacher in the district, during Tuesday night’s meeting of the board. She added that the union wanted to have a legal agreement in order to put the “privacy needs” of staff, students, and parents first.

According to Grant Bosse, the director of communications at the New Hampshire Department of Education, most school districts have not had to go through as intensive a process as Timberlane to allow teachers to use video conferencing.

“They just switched to a different mode of instruction. This is the only situation of its kind that we’ve been dealing with this week,” Bosse said previously.

During the meeting, Allaire said that some districts allowed teachers to video conference with students without drafting a formal memorandum of understanding and later ran into problems.

“Some districts did it with no restrictions and we have heard some pretty alarming stories about breaches of privacy,” she said.

Superintendent Earl Metzler said during the meeting that even though Timberlane teachers were provided the option to video chat with their students later than teacher in other districts, he believes that Timberlane will have fewer problems related to video conferencing technology going forward.

“I do believe we will sustain our efforts longer because of what we did on the front end,” he said.

Richman said previously that the agreement not only ensures privacy protections for teachers, but also the option to receive training in the technology.

During the meeting on Tuesday, Allaire said that teachers who do not feel comfortable using the technology or who feel that they can effectively teach without it, will not be required to use it.

In addition, Allaire said that teachers will not be allowed to hold classes via video conferencing technology. Instead, video conferencing is only to be used for extra help or “small support sessions.”

While teachers cannot use video conferencing as a primary teaching tool, Allaire said, they recently were given the option to send recorded video or audio of themselves teaching to students.

The board also discussed distributing Chromebook laptops to elementary school students who need them. The laptops are already owned by the district, so they will be handed out to students who do not have access to another computer later this week. Students who receive a laptop from the district will be able to use them while school buildings are closed.

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