Families asked to give ‘grace and flexibility’ as Wake schools open virtually Monday
Wake County school leaders are asking families to show patience as teachers “pull off a small miracle: opening school in a nearly 100% virtual environment” on Monday.
Monday will mark the first day of classes for most of the state’s 1.5 million public school students, many of whom will be like Wake County in starting with only online classes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore said Friday that “patience will be the order of the day” during the first two weeks of school, which will be used for getting students used to operating in an online environment.
“We’ve spoken a lot since March about grace and flexibility as we navigate our way through this pandemic,” Moore said at a news conference Friday. “At no time will this be more important in our district than in the coming few weeks.
“Please know that we are doing everything we can to ensure that students are learning and families are supported through all the challenges.”
Wake had switched to an online environment in mid-March after Gov. Roy Cooper ordered schools to be closed for in-person classes to try to slow the spread of COVID-19.
High expectations set for online classes
But Moore said there will be a “completely new set of high expectations for remote learning compared to this past spring.” This will include taking attendance, giving tests and turning in assignments that will be graded.
Due to the orientation activities, Moore said that students may not get the normal two to three hours a day of live online instruction during the first two weeks. Eventually, students will get a full day of both live and recorded online activities.
“We know that many of you have concerns about your child being in front of a screen for long periods of time,” Moore said. “The schedules your schools are creating will allow for considerable off-screen time for exercise and other activities.”
The orientation period will also allow for the district to work with Activate Good to distribute 38,000 computers and 10,000 hotspot devices to students. Activate Good is looking for volunteers to help with the distribution, which begins Monday. Go to activategood.org/operationaccesspart2 to become a volunteer.
The district will notify families who said they need devices on when to come to pick them up. Moore said that students will not be penalized for getting online later than their classmates.
“While it may take a little time, we aim to have all students equipped with the devices and connectivity that they need to learn as soon as possible,” said school board chairman Keith Sutton.
Wake working on reopening guidelines
School leaders say they hope to begin bringing back students for in-person classes in late October or early November. Moore said that a presentation will be made at Tuesday’s school board work session about a new COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board that will help the district decide on when it’s safe to resume face-to-face classes.
To help assess where students stand at the start of the school year, the state is letting schools give unused state standardized tests from the spring. Moore said that she doesn’t anticipate Wake will use that option.
But Moore said that teachers will be covering the material that may have been missed in the spring to help students get caught up.
“There’s really no replacement for the in-person instruction,” Moore said. “We do believe in-person is best. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have high-quality virtual instruction, and that is our goal.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 11:36 AM.
