ROCHESTER — Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School has provided a list of remote student activities for students to complete this week, while the school district works on developing a more formal approach for the week of March 30 to April 3. The learning activities will not count through toward student transcripts. 

“March 30, 2020 starts a new chapter in our delivery of education. There is a huge learning curve that students and teachers will be navigating together!” the school said in a letter to students. 

Old Colony sent out a survey recently to families to find out more about family access to the internet and what technology families usually use so that the school knows how to best plan. 

That survey can be found here. 

The school also let its families know about Comcast Internet Essentials, a plan that will offer two months of free internet. Administrators directed community members to www.internetessentials.com for more information. 

Even if Old Colony returns to school on April 7, the start of spring sports will be delayed until at least April 27. 

The school said SAT, ACT and College Board have emailed all registrants with cancellations and updates. 

Although Old Colony said that CollegeBoard had not shared an update on tests, the testing company had released information around the same time or after the school did. AP tests will move to an online format and will only cover material through early March. 

The school will make final decisions on senior events and prom in the future. 

In his update Superintendent-Director Aaron Polansky wrote that “we acknowledge the fact that there is no substitute for our face to face interactions.” 

He also asked for the school community to be patient with teachers and staff. 

“We are asking our community to refrain from publicly scrutinizing their children’s teachers/schools for the way we are teaching, or the lessons we are assigning,” said Polansky. “We are about to navigate uncharted waters with less preparation time than our teachers would have liked. We are figuring this out as we go.