When will Wake teachers get vaccinated? School district is drawing up COVID plans.
The Wake County school system is working on how to vaccinate its employees for COVID-19 as it prepares for the return of thousands of students to school campuses next week.
More than 84,000 Wake County students will resume in-person classes over the next three weeks. The return of students is prompting calls from teachers about when they’ll be vaccinated now that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has announced that school employees will be eligible to get shots starting Feb. 24.
Wake has 10,700 teachers and thousands of other school-based employees who will become eligible this month, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, substitute teachers and teacher assistants. Wake says only 614 employees are age 65 and older, which would qualify them to get a shot right now under state rules that have prioritized frontline healthcare workers and older adults before school employees.
“We have like a vaccine team at the leadership level at the district that is working with county health officials to make sure that we understand how to best accomplish this, whether it is school sites, an educator day or special locations or times,” Wake Superintendent Cathy Moore said at a news conference Friday at Wakefield High School in Raleigh.
“All of those things are being discussed right now, and it’s going to have to move very quickly in order to make sure that on the very first day, as many educators as possible can get in and get access to that vaccine.”
School vaccination sites?
Options being considered include giving the shots at schools during the school day. This would allow teachers to get their doses without having to take time off or leave campus, according to school board chairman Keith Sutton.
Moore said the district will not require school employees to get vaccinated.
It’s unclear how quickly most school employees will get the vaccine. Moore and Sutton said the district doesn’t control the number of doses that are available in Wake County.
“Board members are working with private pharmacists, hospitals and other agencies to ensure that when there is vaccine here, that there is a proper and safe and orderly process to get those vaccines into arms,” Sutton said at the news conference.
Moore reiterated that it’s safe to open schools even without the vaccinations as long as proper safety measures are followed.
“While a vaccine is a dimension of returning safely to class, the other things that we’ve talked about around masking and social distancing are equally as important,” Moore said. “Those are things that we already practiced prior to the winter break when we were open successfully then.”
That message was echoed Friday in new guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said in-person schooling can resume safely with masks, social distancing and other strategies, the Associated Press reported. The CDC also said that vaccination of teachers, while important, is not a prerequisite for reopening.
Wake concerned about reopening bill
Even though Wake will send students back on campus next week, it would still be affected by state legislation requiring school districts to offer in-person classes. One part of the bill requires school districts to offer daily in-person classes to special-education students.
Lawmakers will negotiate over the weekend and come up with a new version. That version could be voted on by both the state House and Senate on Monday night.
Sutton said the legislation could cause as many as 10,000 more Wake students than planned to return for daily in-person classes. He asked the legislature to slow down on the bill and leave it up to local school districts and health officials how to handle reopening.
“This board has been working along with the superintendent to get our students back into school,” Sutton said. “We want to make sure that we do so safely and there are parts of the legislation that we feel compromise that safety to some degree.”
Moore said principals are determining how the bill’s special-ed requirements will affect their class sizes, especially at middle schools and high schools where there are strict social-distancing requirements.
Durham is among what lawmakers say is 20 out of the state’s 115 school districts that aren’t offering in-person classes. Durham school leaders had planned to stay with online classes only for the rest of the school year but now are preparing to resume in-person classes if the bill becomes law.
“Durham likes to lead the way but it is very likely the General Assembly will take our choice away,” Durham Superintendent Pascal Mubenga said in a statement Thursday. “We know our community really well. We know our educators. We know our families. But the General Assembly makes laws that we must follow.”
Students must follow COVID rules
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.
Of Wake’s 161,650 students, 52% will have in-person classes this semester. The rest are in the Virtual Academy program.
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.
It will mark the first time that Wake’s high school students will receive in-person classes since mid-March.
Elementary and middle school students began receiving in-person instruction again in the fall before the district switched to all-remote learning in January and the first half of February due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the community.
“We are excited about our students returning to school next week,” Sutton said. “It’s been a long time coming.”
School leaders emphasized the need for students and staff to follow the safety protocols.
For instance, new rules will require at least six feet of social distancing between students when they eat lunch at schools, either in the cafeteria or their classrooms. Students will not be allowed to talk or socialize while their masks are off as they eat and drink.
High school students won’t be allowed to leave campus for lunch.
The district is requiring student-athletes to wear masks at practices and competitions. They’re also not allowing fans of visiting teams to attend athletic events.
“We must remain vigilant about ensuring that our return to in-person is done as safely as possible,” Moore said. “That is our focus.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 2:00 PM.
