Wake’s year-round schools usually open in July. Here’s how that could change this year.
More than 40,000 Wake County students could have the start of their school year pushed back into early August as the school district deals with the lingering impact of the coronavirus.
Wake’s 40,000 multi-track year-round students and the thousands of students at modified-calendar schools are supposed to start the next school year in July. But on Tuesday, school administrators recommended moving the start of their school year to Aug. 3, citing how officials are still waiting for state guidance on how to reopen schools.
“We felt that it was important to go ahead and to make a decision that our multi-track year-round schools would not begin until Aug. 3rd,” Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore told school board members.
“We know that the guidance and the data is being reviewed every single day and the state and local health officials are paying close attention to trends. We will continue to be responsive as additional guidance and information comes out about the changes that are occurring. “
Wake is also planning to move up the start of its school year for traditional-calendar schools a week to Aug. 17 to comply with a state law passed as part of a coronavirus relief package.
Since mid-April, Wake has temporarily suspended the use of the year-round calendar, in which students get periodic short breaks during the school year. Those students are using the traditional calendar to close out the school year.
Year-round families want news
Families at year-round schools have been clamoring for news about what would happen with next school year. So many people tried to join Tuesday’s virtual school board meeting that it exceeded the 1,000 capacity limit.
“We are aware that some folks are unable to attend our work session because it has reached max capacity,” Wake tweeted Tuesday. “We apologize for the inconvenience.
“We will post the recording to YouTube following the meeting. We’ll also update this thread with the link when it is posted.”
All of North Carolina’s public schools are closed for in-person instruction for the rest of the school year due to the coronavirus pandemic, with no certainty about when they’ll reopen.
A state task force is already working on recommendations for how to reopen schools. Some ideas being reviewed include having students come to school on alternate days, daily screening before letting people on campus and requiring desks to be 6 feet apart.
The earlier start date for year-round schools makes a decision for them more pressing than for other students.
In the absence of any state recommendations yet, Assistant Superintendent Wade Martin said the decision was made to recommend a one-month delay in opening.
To ensure year-round students still meet the state requirement of at least 1,025 hours of instruction each school year, an extra 15 minutes would be added to their school day.
Martin said staff is recommending adding the time over having students report for six full days of classes on Saturdays.
Year-round students will also have their breaks shortened so that the school year still ends in June. Instead of getting three weeks off after every nine weeks of classes, they’ll get two weeks off.
“The multi-track year-round calendars were really the most difficult to work through because there were no great options here,” Moore said.
Teachers losing workdays
The revised calendar law requires schools to now have both at least 190 days of classes (including five remote learning days) and 1,025 hours. Most schools met the time requirement only so they’re having to add in as many as five in-person days of instruction as well as the remote learning days.
Wake school officials say they had to eliminate five teacher workdays to fit in the new instructional days. But they complained the state isn’t paying teachers for the extra instructional time.
“This really means the teachers will be doing more work on their own for no pay,” said school board member Jim Martin.
Even with the changes, Wake still plans to keep schools closed for students on Election Day. Many schools are used as polling places, and turnout is expected to be high. Most students would also still get the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr off, although it would become a regular school day for year-round students.
No changes are proposed for now for single-track year-round schools. Wake will present changes for early colleges at a later date.
The school board could vote on the revised calendars June 2.
This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 5:43 PM.
