Back to high school in January? Wake making plans for in-person classes for all grades.
The Wake County school system is planning to increase the number of students who get in-person instruction in the spring semester, while also trying to assure families that it’s safe for schools to reopen now.
Wake students will begin returning to school buildings for in-person instruction on Monday for the first time since March 13. But many students will only get limited or no in-person instruction for the rest of the fall semester.
School administrators will ask the school board next month to approve a plan for classes in the spring semester that begins in January. The idea would be for Wake to have elementary schools and students in K-12 regional special-ed programs get daily in-person classes, with middle schools and high schools using a rotation of in-person and online classes.
Superintendent Cathy Moore warned Tuesday that plans could change depending on whether the governor issues a new executive order or whether COVID-19 conditions worsen in the county. She said they may also have to ease back on reopening if they can’t successfully operate the reopening plan that starts Monday.
“We offer these planning assumptions from the perspective of a school system that desperately wants to return to in-person instruction but is determined to maintain the health and safety of tens of thousands of students and staff,” Moore said.
School board chairman Keith Sutton said the board could vote on the spring semester plan at its Nov. 10 meeting.
Students return to campus Monday
Wake’s PreK-3 students and K-12 special-education students in regional programs will return for in-person instruction on Monday. They will be on a cycle of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of remote classes, before switching to daily in-person classes on Nov. 16.
Middle school students also will return to school Nov. 9 for a three-week rotation of in-person and online courses. Fourth- and fifth-grade students will begin on that rotation on Nov. 16.
High school students will continue to only receive online classes for the rest of the fall semester, which ends in January.
Wake will continue to offer the Virtual Academy program for students who don’t feel safe returning to campus or who don’t want to worry about jumping between in-person and online classes. The Virtual Academy registration period for the spring semester will be Oct. 21 to Nov. 4 for middle school and high school students and Dec. 2-9 for elementary students.
More than 85,000 of Wake’s 160,000 students signed up this semester for the Virtual Academy program. Wake would need a large number to stay in the Virtual Academy in the spring to successfully operate the in-person classes.
School board member Jim Martin complained that families of older students are being asked to decide on the Virtual Academy before the board adopts a plan for the spring. Drew Cook, assistant superintendent for academics, said middle schools and high schools need to know sooner than elementary schools how many students they’ll have to plan for classes next semester.
Students who didn’t sign up for the Virtual Academy will return to a very different school environment.
Under new state COVID-19 rules, students will have to wear face masks in schools and buses and pass daily temperature checks and health screenings. Schools will stress social distancing, with students sitting individually and not having any physical contact to try to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Starting Monday, Moore said the school system will post online a list of Wake County schools where there are confirmed COVID-19 cases. She also said that the district will promptly notify staff and families if they’ve been exposed to a confirmed case of COVID-19 at a school.
When there are confirmed cases, Moore said that affected areas will be disinfected. But she said schools will typically not be closed if there’s a confirmed case.
“We are taking every possible measure to reduce the risk and respond promptly to any confirmed case,” Moore said.
Wake lobbied on school reopening
The school board has been lobbied by Wake NCAE, which says it’s not yet safe to resume in-person instruction, and by some parents who say Wake should be moving faster to bring students back on campus.
Moore said that the district has approved 84% of the requests from employees to work from home. She said they had to rescind some previously approved teleworking requests because those workers perform essential services at schools.
The superintendent said the district is in a “stable” position in terms of having enough staff. For instance, she said they only have nine vacancies out of more than 1,000 positions for fourth- and fifth-grade teachers.
Moore said the district will continue to monitor numbers on resignations and retirements.
To ease concerns, Moore said an anonymous system is being created for staff to report concerns they have with safety at their schools. She also said schools are expected to practice the reopening protocols before students return.
Some parents have complained that the reopening plan will leave fourth- and fifth-grade students without daily in-person classes and keep high school students online into January.
Moore said that their goal is to safely bring as many students back for in-person classes as possible. She added that Wake can’t switch to daily in-person classes for grades 6-12 until it’s allowed by the state. Currently, only elementary schools have that option.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 5:20 PM.
