How should schools reopen for in-person classes? Deadline is Monday for Wake’s survey
As they decide how to return students back to school for in-person instruction, Wake County school leaders want to hear from parents.
The Wake County school system emailed families on Friday about an online survey, bit.ly/Wakesurvey, with questions including parents’ preferences on returning students to classes. The deadline to respond is 5 p.m. Monday.
Gov. Roy Cooper recently announced that North Carolina school districts can reopen elementary schools for full-time, daily in-person instruction starting Oct. 5. The Wake County school board will meet Wednesday to discuss reopening plans.
Wake’s 162,000 students haven’t had face-to-face classes since Cooper ordered school buildings to be closed in March to try to slow the spread of COVID-19. Wake, North Carolina’s largest school district, opted to begin the school year in August with only remote learning.
But a growing number of Wake parents are demanding that schools reopen for in-person classes on at least a limited basis.
Survey asks how quickly students should return
One of the survey questions asks parents to rank four different options for returning students:
▪ Return PreK-5 students and special-ed regional program students first with grades 6-12 returning later.
▪ Return PreK-2 students and special-ed regional program students first with grades 3-12 returning later.
▪ Return PreK-2 students, special-ed regional program students and grades 6 and 9 first with grades 3-5, 7-8 and 10-12 returning later.
▪ Return all students at the same time.
Even when in-person classes resume, students in Wake’s new Virtual Academy program will be able to stay with only online classes.
Other survey questions include whether students will ride school buses, bring their personal computers to school, and how comfortable they’d be changing teachers and classmates for some classes.
Wake says the survey should take three to five minutes to complete.
Wake could reopen elementary schools at full capacity or could limit capacity to try to maintain social distancing, which would likely result in students not getting daily in-person classes. Wake could also continue to only use remote instruction.
Wake will also consider feedback from teachers and other school employees. The North Carolina Association of Educators is asking teachers to lobby school districts to delay opening elementary schools for daily in-person instruction..
