Wake schools may switch back to online classes. Special board meeting called Monday.
The Wake County school board has scheduled a special work session on Monday to discuss switching to remote instruction in the face of the surging number of COVID-19 cases.
North Carolina’s largest school district posted Friday evening that a work session will be held at 3 p.m. Monday for “discussion and review of end of first semester in-person instruction.” The meeting comes as the state and county have seen a rising number of coronavirus cases that have caused some school districts to suspend the use of in-person instruction.
School board chairman Keith Sutton said they’ll discuss the situation on Monday with a vote potentially coming Tuesday to suspend in-person classes. He cited how it’s becoming more difficult to staff schools due to the increasing number of school employees who are under quarantine.
“The numbers are up and we’re looking at our operational efficiency,” Sutton said in an interview Friday evening. “Are we going to be able to properly staff schools?”
Currently, elementary and middle school students and some special-education students are getting at least some in-person instruction in Wake.
Topics for Monday’s meeting include:
▪ “New and/or additional information or Executive Orders from the Governor.
▪ Collaboration with and learnings from state/local health officials and the ABC Science Collaborative
▪ Monitoring implementation of our district’s current plan and programming”
COVID-19 spreading in Wake County
On Friday, the state reported a record number of 7,540 new COVID-19 cases. On Thursday, the district reported a record 80 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past week among students and staff.
In addition, Wake moved from a yellow to an orange county in the state’s COVID-19 alert system, meaning there’s “substantial community spread.”
The surge in cases caused Gov. Roy Cooper to announce a new statewide curfew that goes into effect at 10 p.m. Friday. People are asked to stay home from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Wake, like most school districts in the state, began the school year in August with only online classes due to fears about the coronavirus. More than 85,000 of Wake’s 157,000 students are attending the Virtual Academy to avoid taking in-person classes this semester.
But Wake began returning some students for in-person classes on Oct. 26. Currently, PreK-3 students and K-12 special-education students in regional programs are getting daily in-person instruction.
Students in fourth through eighth grades are getting a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online classes. High school students are staying with virtual classes this semester.
Some Wake teachers have been lobbying the school board for months to stick with online classes, saying it’s not safe to have students on campus. Their efforts have increased as the number of COVID-19 cases has risen and neighboring districts such as Johnston and Granville counties have opted to suspend in-person instruction for the rest of the month.
“It’s becoming more and more difficult to staff the schools,” Sutton said.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 7:59 PM.
