Thousands of Wake County middle school students are now back in school. Is it safe?
About 6,000 Wake County middle school students returned for in-person classes Monday at a time when coronavirus cases are rising in North Carolina and the Triangle.
Wake middle school students were back on campus for the first time since March 13 under new health rules requiring them to wear face masks, pass daily health checks and maintain social distancing.
Concerns about coronavirus added a new layer of apprehension for families, especially those of sixth-grade students making the transition from elementary schools.
“It’s also pretty terrifying,” Joye Manley-Mitchell, a parent at Carroll Middle School in Raleigh, said in an interview Monday. “You want to make sure that your child is safe in this environment, so we talked about mask wearing. He has to wear it all day and social distancing. It’s scary but hopeful too.”
Wake school leaders insist that they’re taking safety concerns seriously as they bring students back on campus.
“The most important thing is that we’re prioritizing the health, well-being and safety of students when they return to campus,” Elizabeth MacWilliams, the principal of Carroll Middle, said in an interview.
Like the majority of North Carolina school districts, Wake opened the school year in August offering only online classes. Wake is the largest district in the state, with 160,000 students and 191 schools.
Schools transition to in-person classes
Wake has been phasing in the return of elementary and middle school students. High school students will stay with only online classes into January.
On Oct. 26, PreK-3 students and K-12 special-education students in regional programs were split into three groups and began returning to campus on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of remote learning.
Middle school students returned this week under that three-week rotation system. Wake can’t have all students on campus at the same time due to state COVID-19 rules that restrict campus capacity at middle schools and high schools.
Next week, the special-ed regional students and PreK-3 students will begin getting daily in-person classes. Also next Monday, students in fourth and fifth grades will return on that three-week rotation plan.
Rise in COVID-19 cases
On Monday, North Carolina reached a new high in the seven-day average for newly reported COVID-19 cases, according to data released by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
The recent rise has also happened in the Triangle. Wake County’s 2,393 newly confirmed cases over the past two weeks are second in North Carolina only to Mecklenburg’s 3,246 cases, the News & Observer previously reported.
The school system is reporting at least 25 confirmed COVID-19 cases since Oct. 26.
Some groups, such as the North Carolina Association of Educators, say it’s not yet safe to resume in-person instruction. But state health officials say that the return of K-12 public school students is not driving the rise in cases because children are less likely to catch and spread the virus than adults.
In the last month, MacWilliams said Carroll approved new requests from 52 families to join the Virtual Academy instead of returning this semester for in-person classes. The majority of students at Carroll, and across the district, are in the Virtual Academy.
“The whole situation is exacerbated right now just by increasing cases in the state, and so I think there’s just heightened awareness around that,” MacWilliams said. “We’ve had some parents who just have called us last minute and said, ‘Never mind, we want to stay remote.’’
Students attend socially distanced classrooms
The combination of the Virtual Academy and splitting students into three groups, means Wake middle schools only have around 150 to 200 students on campus each day now. It’s helping keep class sizes down to around 10 students in rooms.
It’s a shift for students and teachers who’ve been holding classes online for the past several months.
“Of course like anybody right now, kind of all of a sudden being around people is a little nervous,” Liz Harrod, a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Carroll, said in an interview. “But we’re doing everything we can to make sure everybody is safe, and we’re excited to see them. So even though it’s in a very unconventional way, we’re happy that they’re here.”
Stephanie Pozoulakis, 6th-grade language arts teacher at Carroll, weaved the return of face-to-face classes into her lesson Monday about bravery and courage.
“Anybody nervous about coming today?” Pozoulakis asked her students, drawing several yes responses. “I was.”
Due to the rotation system and the upcoming holidays, middle school students will only get around eight or nine days of in-person classes this semester.
MacWilliams said teachers will use the in-person time to give more personalized instruction to students, whether it’s helping them get caught up or offering them advanced material. She said the time on campus will also give students an opportunity to safely socialize with classmates, something they haven’t been able to do learning from home.
Student performance slipped in Wake during the first quarter, when only remote instruction was used. Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore said the district had a higher student failure rate this first quarter than compared to the same time last school year.
“As proud as I am of what we were able to accomplish remotely and through the Virtual Academy, part of our work is to ensure that the diverse needs and interests of our communities are served,” MacWilliams said. “For these kids in particular, being on campus is something that they’re interested in and that really benefits them.”
This story was originally published November 9, 2020 at 10:14 AM.
