Wake is poised to suspend in-person classes in January due to COVID. Here’s the plan
Updated: The Wake County school board approved a plan Tuesday that would move all 157,000 students to online classes until Jan. 20. Read details here.
The Wake County school system could switch to only offering online classes in January after students return from winter break.
Wake County school administrators recommended Monday that in-person instruction be suspended from Jan. 4-15 due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases. School officials say that many employees are under quarantine now, and it will likely get even harder staffing schools right after the holidays.
The proposal would have students finish out this week using in-person classes. But instead of returning to campuses on Jan. 4, they’d finish the fall semester with remote instruction. The goal would be to return for in-person instruction on Jan. 20 when the spring semester begins for most students.
“This pause gives us the greatest chance to be successful for sustainable in-person instruction,” said school board member Jim Martin. “I think that’s the reason to consider this because we have to look at it and make the decision that is going to give us the best long-term value. The last thing we want to do is sort of have to open and close down.”
Hold harmless from state exams
High school students would still need to come on campus to take required state exams, but they’ll have until June 30 if they don’t feel comfortable taking them in January. Wake also says that they’ll use state flexibility so that a student’s score on the tests will not cause their grade to drop for that class.
The board could approve the plan to pause face-to-face classes on Tuesday. If Wake makes the move, it would join districts such as Johnston and Granville counties and Charlotte-Mecklenburg that have put the brakes on in-person instruction during the winter holiday season.
Wake is North Carolina’s largest school district, with more than 157,000 students. The majority of Wake students are already only taking online classes this semester.
Problems with online classes
The return, even briefly, to remote instruction only brings issues. Attendance and grades have been down during online classes, leading to more students getting failing marks.
Some parents say that online classes have led to increases in depression and social isolation among students.
Jennifer Birch, a mental health counselor, emailed the school board on Sunday about how the 34 Wake County students she met last week for therapy sessions are struggling due to the lack of in-person instruction and peer engagement.
“You hold in your hands the fragile emotional and mental health of our Wake County students,” Birch wrote in her email. “Our children have sacrificed enough, and it is your duty — and ours as a community — to make the sacrifices necessary to preserve the option for in-person schooling.
“Please know that if you close our schools, the additional ramifications for these kids will be great, severe, and long lasting.”
School board member Roxie Cash said they need to realize that remote learning doesn’t work for a lot of students.
“COVID is a health issue,” Cash said. “But depression is a health issue too. In our ER right now, we see both. Both depression and COVID take lives.”
COVID cases on the rise
Coronavirus cases have surged both in Wake County and statewide since Thanksgiving.
On Friday, the state reported a record number of 7,540 new COVID-19 cases. Wake County recorded 3,389 infections over the past week, compared to 3,022 the week before, the News & Observer previously reported.
On Thursday, the district reported a record 80 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past week among students and staff. The district has reported 299 confirmed COVID-19 cases since students began returning for in-person instruction on Oct. 26.
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 went into effect Friday encouraging people to stay at home from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The spike also led Wake school leaders to schedule Monday’s specially called board work session.
Superintendent Cathy Moore said COVID-19 has not been spreading in schools. But she said that the community spread is causing many school employees to be quarantined.
While there are 3,000 substitutes on the district’s books, Moore said only 250 to 300 regularly pick up work at a time when the district needs 400 to 500 a day due to teacher absences.
“As we look at pausing for two weeks in January, it’s acknowledging that the data is going in the wrong direction in the sub coverage,” Moore said. “As the numbers of absences increase, the number of subs is decreasing.”
In-person classes offered
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 Wake students are attending the Virtual Academy to avoid taking in-person classes this semester.
Currently, PreK-3 students and K-12 special-education students in regional programs are getting daily in-person instruction. But some K-3 classrooms are only able to provide 3 feet of social distancing instead of the 6 feet recommended by the state.
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.
In November, the board approved a plan to provide all students not in the Virtual Academy with some in-person instruction next semester. In that plan, elementary school students would get daily in-person classes and middle school and high school students would get the mix of in-person and online classes.
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.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 3:04 PM.
