Wake approves plan for bringing students back next semester. Here are the details.
Wake County high school students will return for a limited amount of in-person classes in January, ending nearly 10 months of online-only classes.
The Wake County school board voted 7-1 on Tuesday for a plan that would bring back all grade levels for at least some face-to-face classes in the spring semester that starts in January. The plan includes some students who have been getting limited or no in-person instruction this semester.
The vote comes as North Carolina and the nation are seeing a spike in coronavirus cases. Gov. Roy Cooper announced a new county alert system Tuesday to gauge COVID-19 spread at the county level throughout the state.
School board chairman Keith Sutton said he wanted to acknowledge the concerns of teachers and other school employees who don’t feel it’s safe to reopen. But Sutton said Wake has shown the last few weeks that it can safely have students back on campus.
“I want to reassure our community, our students, our teachers, our staff that we are confident that the protocols are in place, the procedures are in place to continue, at least where we have started, in terms of a successful reopening,” Sutton said Tuesday.
The plan could change if Cooper changes school reopening rules, COVID-19 cases spike too much or Wake finds it can’t follow the plan. The plan approved Tuesday calls for:
▪ PreK-3 students and K-12 special education students in regional programs will continue getting daily in-person classes, which began Monday.
▪ Fourth- and fifth-grade students are now scheduled to join them with class sizes potentially reaching 30 students. They’re now getting a mix of in-person and online classes this semester.
▪ Middle school students will stay on a three-week rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online classes, a schedule that they started last week.
▪ High school students now will join that rotation. They’ve only taken online classes this semester and haven’t had in-person classes since March.
Concerns raised about reopening
Board members said Tuesday they can still revise the plan before next semester, such as not having elementary students get daily instruction.
Board member Jim Martin said it doesn’t make sense to bring back elementary students for daily classes when not all classrooms can provide 6 feet of social distancing. Wake will provide 3 feet of social distancing in those classrooms, and students will still be required to wear face masks.
Last week, the school district reported 26 new COVID-19 cases. There have been 51 cases since Oct. 26, the day the first group of students returned for in-person instruction. The number of new cases schools report rises daily.
Based on the state and local numbers, Martin said he’s not comfortable that the data supports having classrooms where only 3 feet of social distancing is being provided.
“We may be in a better place come January,” Martin said. “I don’t know. But where we are right now, I only see the numbers going higher from where they are right now.”
Elementary school principals will be surveyed if they prefer a plan to have fourth and fifth grades use a rotation of one week of in-person classes and one week of online classes.
School board member Chris Heagarty said they need to adopt a plan now to give schools time to plan for next semester. But he says if they see “red flags” in the next few weeks that they can make changes.
“We don’t have the data right now, but we will have time to get the data,” Heagarty said. “It sounds like we’ll have the time to pivot if the data shows it’s a bad idea.”
‘Not ideal’
School leaders say they can’t offer daily in-person classes for middle school and high school students because Cooper is requiring those schools to limit capacity to maintain social distancing under “Plan B.” Cooper is only allowing elementary schools to reopen at full capacity under “Plan A,” where social distancing is not being required in classrooms.
School administrators said even though they’re bringing more students back for in-person classes, it won’t be the same as what it was like before the pandemic.
For instance, Plan B students are only guaranteed five hours of live instruction during the weeks they’re learning from home. They’re getting pre-recorded material and independent work the rest of the time because many of their teachers are also juggling educating the in-person students.
“There is nothing about Plan B that is ideal,” said Drew Cook, assistant superintendent for academics.
Wake’s changes won’t affect students who are in the Virtual Academy program. Registration for elementary students won’t start until December, but 43,117 middle and high school students have signed up for the program’s spring semester, down 4,076 students from this semester.
Virtual learning hasn’t been perfect either. Around 25% of middle school and high school students received at least one failing grade during the first quarter of the school year when all classes were virtual.
Wake says safe to reopen schools
Wake is North Carolina’s largest school district with 160,000 students. The decision to bring all students back comes as the neighboring Durham Public Schools is still keeping its students with online classes this semester.
On Thursday, the Durham school board will vote on bringing elementary students back for two days a week of in-person instruction in the spring semester. But Durham is considering keeping middle school and high school students with online only classes next semester.
Wake school administrators cited advice from the ABC Science Collaborative, a group initially formed by Duke University to help school districts considering whether to reopen. The group, like state health officials, say that children are less at risk of transmitting COVID-19 than adults.
Dr. Danny Benjamin, a leader of the ABC Science Collaborative, told the board last week that schools can safely reopen if they’re following the 3Ws: wearing a face covering, maintaining social distancing and regularly washing hands.
But Benjamin also said that Wake can expect one case per school per week and that there’s not enough data yet to support or refute the full reopening of elementary schools under Plan A.
Some board members talked about delaying the vote for at least elementary schools. But the majority disagreed.
“While I personally disagree with us returning, I think the parents have provided enough feedback that they need a plan, and they need it now,” said board member Monika Johnson-Hostler. “If we change, we can do that later.”
Wake shares student data for COVID research
On Tuesday, the school board approved an agreement to share student data that the ABC Science Collaborative can use for COVID-19 pediatric research.
The data will come from an app that the collaborative will develop. Families can use the app to show they’re meeting daily health screening requirements for their children.
Students who use the app won’t have to answer questions before being allowed inside the school building, such as whether they have COVID symptoms. Students will still need to have employees check their temperature before they’re allowed inside.
The app is voluntary and parents who use it can later request to have their child’s data removed. In addition, the agreement says that data won’t be provided to Duke University that identifies specific students.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 8:26 PM.
