When will it be safe for NC students to return to school? Opinions vary as decision looms.
Educators and elected officials are skeptical that North Carolina’s public schools will reopen this school year amid the ongoing threat of the coronavirus.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper says that he’ll announce this week whether he’ll reopen K-12 public schools that he’s previously ordered to remain closed through May 15. Some state and local leaders said Wednesday they expect Cooper will keep schools closed because social distancing won’t be possible on campuses.
“There’s functionally no way that we can social distance these schools,” former Rep. Charles Jeter, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system’s legislative liaison, said in an interview. ”We’ve got three high schools with over 3,000 students. But even at our least populated schools, there’s no way to social distance.
“I don’t know how, even if we’re going to meet the guidelines set by the president, we can go back to school.”
ReOpenNC wants schools reopened
But some say it’s safe to reopen schools, along with other businesses that have been ordered closed under Cooper’s statewide stay-at-home restrictions.
“We are for reopening North Carolina on May 1,” Ashley Smith, a co-founder of ReOpenNC, said in an interview Wednesday. “Our stance is that the number of illnesses in children is low. We want to reopen N.C. completely and allow people to make their own decisions.”
Around 1,000 people marched in downtown Raleigh Tuesday in a protest organized by ReOpenNC.
Rep. Craig Horn, a Union County Republican, said he’s not optimistic that schools will reopen this school year. Horn says he can see some of the stay-at-home restrictions being eased while schools remain closed.
“Even though children are at the lowest risk, they can be carriers,” Horn, a chairman of several legislative education committees, said in an interview. “Teachers could come to school and be exposed and put their health at risk. It’s a scary thing.”
The state’s public schools have been closed since mid-March as part of an effort by Cooper to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The school year for most of North Carolina’s 1.5 million public school students is officially supposed to end around June 11 under the state’s school calendar law.
The coronavirus has caused 37 states, three U.S. territories and the District of Columbia to order or recommend school building closures for the rest of the academic year, affecting about 40.7 million public school students, according to Education Week.
On Wednesday, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced that schools will not reopen this school year, The State reported.
North Carolina schools switched to providing remote instruction so students can keep learning. Many schools are providing computers and printed materials to students who don’t have the technology to learn from home.
Protecting health of students and staff
Online learning isn’t as effective as in-person instruction, according to Mark Jewell, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators. But he said keeping students and school employees home is saving lives.
“While we understand the difficulty of extending school building closures and the impacts it will have, we think it is in the best interest of students and educators to keep schools closed through the rest of this instructional year,” Jewell said in a statement Wednesday. “We applaud all the educators who have risen to the challenge by continuing to provide the virtual learning opportunities our students need to sustain their minds, while providing the nutritional assistance to sustain their bodies.”
Cooper said at a news conference Tuesday that he’s consulting with health and education officials about whether schools could safely reopen.
“We’re eager for our students to come back to our classrooms, but not before it’s safe,” Chip Sudderth, a spokesman for Durham Public Schools, said in an email. “We’re not epidemiologists; we depend on our public health officials to follow the science and guide us on how to adapt to protect our students and staff.
School districts like Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Johnston County say they will do whatever they’re directed to by the state.
“Johnston County Public Schools will follow the directives of our state, local government in conjunction with our Board of Education to continue to serve the students of Johnston County Public Schools in any manner necessary,” Nathanel Shelton, a Johnston County school spokesman, said in an email. “If school opens for this school year, we will work collectively to ensure that student and staff needs are met.”
Leann Winner, director of governmental relations for the N.C. School Boards Association, said they’ve talked with the governor’s office about the many questions that would need to be resolved before schools reopen. She said this includes what to do about how some parents are concerned with their children coming back to school and putting the health of family members at risk.
“My children won’t be returning to public school until there is a vaccine,” Kim Stanley, a New Hanover County parent, tweeted Tuesday. “I pulled mine out two weeks before they closed the schools. We are homeschooling and will continue to do so.”
Dragana Mendel, a Wake County parent, tweeted Tuesday that she hopes schools will remain closed for the rest of the school year.
“Even if they open them due to pressures from covidiots, I wouldn’t even send my son to a middle school where 1,800 kids mingle in hallways hourly for class transition,” Mendel added.
Social distancing challenges in schools
Jeter, the CMS legislative liaison, said he doesn’t know of a single North Carolina superintendent who has publicly or privately said they’d support reopening this school year. Aside from the lack of social distancing in classrooms, he said schools wouldn’t be able to provide the 6 feet of separation as students ride school buses, eat in the cafeteria and walk in the hallways during class changes.
“It’s not like we can say we’re going to sit one kid per seat. “Jeter said. “We don’t have enough buses to cut the occupancy rate in half.”
Jeter said it may make more sense to wait to see if they can get state flexibility to bring students in earlier in August to give them a refresher before the official start of the next school year.
Horn, the state lawmaker, co-chairs a House committee that is considering recommending changes such as temporarily waiving state testing for students and licensure renewal requirements for teachers to help schools during the pandemic.
Horn said the school closures could set the state back educationally. But he doesn’t see how schools can reopen so soon for health reasons.
“This is devastating to all kids,” Horn said. “This is most devastating to the kids who are academically at risk. They’re behind and falling further behind.
“The wealthier kids, they’re online and have access to all kind of educational opportunities so that’s going to exacerbate the gap.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 2:46 PM.
