Wake high school students are returning, but ‘it’s not going to be school as normal’
Thousands of Wake County high school students will soon return for in-person classes for the first time in nearly a year.
Next week will mark the first time that Wake County elementary school and middle school students have had in-person classes since the end of December. But next week will be an even more significant return for high school students, who’ve only had online courses since mid-March of last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re fired up,” Stephen Mares, principal of Athens Drive High School in Raleigh, said Wednesday. “We can’t wait to have them back. It’s been almost a year.
“One of the things that really hits home is we have freshmen who haven’t even been in our building ever, and that’s just so hard to believe.
Students at Wake’s year-round and modified-calendar schools will resume in-person classes Monday. Traditional-calendar students will head back to campus on Wednesday.
Under Wake’s return plan, PreK-3 and K-12 special education students in regional programs will have daily in-person classes. But students in grades four through 12 will be on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online courses.
Of Wake’s 161,650 students, 52% will have in-person classes this semester. The rest are in the Virtual Academy program.
Social distancing required on campus
The school experience that high school students will get is far different than what they had in winter 2020.
Due to state-mandated social distancing requirements, Wake high school students won’t have daily in-person classes. When they’re on campus, they’ll be required to wear face masks and follow rules that discourage them from making physical contact with other people.
By splitting students up, most classrooms at Athens Drive will only have five or fewer students. Teachers will often simultaneously teach the students who are physically in front of them and the students who are taking the classes online.
High school students won’t be allowed to leave campus for lunch. Instead, they’ll eat on campus during socially distanced lunch periods when they’re not allowed to talk or socialize with their classmates.
“The students know that it’s not going to be school as normal,” Mares said. “It’s not going to be students coming into the hallways and hanging with friends. It’s not going to be sitting around a cafeteria table with six of your best friends talking, joking.
“That’s going to be different and students have to realize that yes it’s school and we love having you back and we’re so fired up to have you here. But it’s not going to be school like it was on March 13th.”
‘I follow the science’
Wake NCAE had urged the district to not bring students back for in-person classees until school employees are vaccinated for COVID-19.
Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday that the state will expand vaccine eligibility to PreK-12 school employees starting Feb. 24. But in the meantime, he said schools can safely offer in-person instruction if they follow appropriate protocols.
“I follow the science,” Michael Robbins, a history teacher at Athens Drive, said in an interview Wednesday. “I look at the protocols that are in place. I’m confident that we can have students in here. We can maintain our distance of 6 feet and limit that spread.”
Mares said he’s worked to reassure his staff that they can safely have in-person instruction.
Mares said that there have been some COVID-19 cases among student-athletes and students who took in-person state exams in January. But Mares said that none of the students had contracted the virus on campus and there were no cases of spread at the school.
“We can ensure the safety of our teachers and students until more teachers get the vaccination,” Mares said.
Reaching lost students
The return to in-person instruction comes as Wake County and school districts across the nation have seen both grades and attendance fall during the use of remote learning.
Mares said they’ve done home visits for students who haven’t been checking in regularly for online courses.
For students who’ve failed their classes, Mares said they’ve given them options such as retaking the course to get the needed credits to graduate. Wake is giving seniors who’ve met state but not district requirements the option of still graduating on time this spring.
Some teachers say they’re ready to connect in-person with their students. But Mares says it won’t be easy for teachers who have to work with both in-person and online students at the same time.
“That’s a big challenge for our teachers,” Mares said. “That’s a big concern for them because they want to do right by their kids.”
Chris Remaley, a math teacher at Athens Drive and senior class adviser, said he’s up for the challenge after seeing how remote learning led to some students not feeling connected. He said remote learning “was like a band-aid to fix the problem” during the pandemic.
“My number one concern is making sure we don’t lose anybody,” Remaley said in an interview Wednesday. “We lost enough people during remote learning. I want to make sure this works.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 1:47 PM.
