Listeners of "Slater and Marjo In The Morning" had a chance to hear Pittsfield Public Schools' Superintendent Joe Curtis on Tuesday morning talk about the upcoming '22/'23 school year, which begins for most students on Thursday, Sept. 1.

Curtis and I spoke about the change in start times, free school lunch, homework, and of course, the lingering pandemic and COVID protocol for the upcoming year.

PPS Facebook

There Is No MANDATORY Covid-19 Protocol In Place To Start The School Year.

So, we're gonna keep in place some good health and safety practices, you know, sanitizing our high touch surfaces, we'll have wipes in all of our classrooms, masks available for those who want to wear them, we encourage anyone who wants to wear a mask to please do so, we have an abundance of masks available if families don't have them.

We will still have our air purifiers in all of our classrooms running, we made an investment in that during the pandemic, so we will continue to utilize those, teachers and educators are free to open their windows whenever they'd like.

There Will Be No Contact Tracing, Daily Email For Cases In The Schools.

We will be watching the case counts closely, but we won't be doing any contact tracing this year, or case reporting, so that'll be a real switch for families. We will watch our reported cases, cases that get reported to us, closely, and make decisions as situations evolve if they do.

Quarantining And Isolation Are Still In Effect.

If you have COVID, you do have to quarantine and isolate for five days at least and come out with a negative test.

Symptomatically Ill Students And/Or Staff Should Stay Home.

So, before the pandemic, we would sometimes say, well 'try to get through the day', but now, if you're symptomatic, we want them to stay home, test, and go from there. We do have a number of free tests available, but we don't want symptomatic students, or staff to come to school.

New Start Times For The 2022/2023 Pittsfield School Year.

Elementary School	Full Day of School	Half Day of School
Student Breakfast Start	8:25-9:05	8:25-9:05
Student Reporting Time:	8:45 a.m.	8:45 a.m.
Start of Instructional Time:	8:55 a.m.	8:55 a.m.
End of Instructional Time	3:25p.m.	11:45 a.m.
Middle School	Full Day of School	Half Day of School
Student Breakfast Start	7:20-7:55	7:20-7:55
Student Reporting time:	7:35 a.m.	7:35 a.m.
Start of Instructional Time:	7:45 a.m.	7:45 a.m.
End of Instructional Time:	2:38 p.m.	11:00 a.m.
High School	Full Day of School	Half Day of School
Student Breakfast Start	7:15-7:45	7:15-7:45
Student Reporting Time:	7:25 a.m.	7:25 a.m.
Start of Instructional Time:	7:35 a.m.	7:35 a.m.
End of Instructional Time:	2:30 p.m.	10:50 a.m.

Superintendent Curtis will be sending out an email on Friday, outlining in detail, the protocol for the upcoming year.

LOOK: The most extreme temperatures in the history of every state

Stacker consulted 2021 data from the NOAA's State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) to illustrate the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in each state. Each slide also reveals the all-time highest 24-hour precipitation record and all-time highest 24-hour snowfall.

Keep reading to find out individual state records in alphabetical order.

Gallery Credit: Anuradha Varanasi

Source: Pittsfield Superintendent Curtis: No Mandatory Covid-19 Protocol In Place To Start School Year