Durham Public Schools soon will return to in-person classes. Here’s how it will work.

Students at Durham Public Schools will begin to return to classrooms March 15, reversing district plans that would have kept students in remote classes through the end of the year.

The DPS Board of Education held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the district’s response to Senate Bill 37, which passed the General Assembly this week. If Gov. Roy Cooper signs the bill, it would require North Carolina school districts to offer in-person instruction to all students.

Superintendent Pascal Mubenga presented a plan Thursday for bringing back students to comply with the bill and to prepare the district for reopening.

The board voted 5-2 to approve the plan. Board Chair Bettina Umstead, Vice-chair Mike Lee and board members Alexandra Valladares, Jovonia Lewis and Frederick Ravin voted to approve.

Board members Natalie Beyer and Matt Sears dissented, with both asking to wait a week to monitor the legislation’s outcome.

Umstead said she thinks SB 37 is “poor” because it doesn’t follow guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But because the bill had moved so quickly, the board was forced to act faster than planned. Waiting any longer would put too much pressure on the district to prepare.

“We can hope for something different and it could not happen, and then we aren’t ready, and we need to be ready,” she said.

Durham’s plan calls for students to return to in-person classes for the first time in a year. Elementary school students will return March 15. Middle and high school students will be phased in starting April 8. Specialty high school students will start to return March 18.

Teachers will start returning to schools for work earlier, beginning March 1 for specialty high school instructors. Elementary teachers will return to schools March 8 and secondary school teachers will come back March 24.

But Umstead added in a statement after the meeting, “If you can and if you are able, it’s important that you keep your students at home so that we can have proper social distancing and support our staff in this plan.”

Elementary and secondary school plan

For K-5 students, the district will follow a four-day school week, with Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays with face-to-face instruction.

Students in grades 6 through 12 will follow a cohort model, with three cohorts of students rotating between in-person and remote instruction on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Wednesdays will be designated as a “wellness day” for all students with asynchronous learning, where students complete assignments at home.

Students in middle and high school will attend class in-person two days in a row every other week, while the other school days are for remote instruction.

EC students will have the option to attend up to four days of in-person instruction, unless a parent chooses to continue with virtual learning.

‘The time is now to do it safely’

Board members had voted Jan. 7 to remain in Plan C, with all remote classes, through the end of the school year. The district has had virtual instruction since schools shut down in March.

But with the possibility of the bill being approved by the governor, Mubenga told board members Thursday he was presenting the plan because the district may have just 15 days to safely open its schools if SB 37 becomes law.

SB 37 requires school systems to offer Plan A to special needs students and either Plan A or Plan B for all students.

Cooper said earlier Thursday the bill needs more work. He objects to the minimal social distancing in Plan A and said the legislation must allow local leaders to respond to emergencies, The N&O reported.

The governor has 10 days to sign or veto the bill, and if he doesn’t act, the bill becomes law without his signature.

“If we’re not prepared, it’s going to be chaotic,” Mubenga said.

Ravin said he understands how some families need their kids to return to school, even though some may have enough support at home for remote learning to work.

He also believed the bill would pass eventually.

“I’m looking at reality,” he said. “It’s going to go through. We’re in North Carolina. We know who we vote for, we know who’s in office. It’s going to go through.”

“I would not feel comfortable having our entire community of Durham teetering on a decision from the legislature, when we know how to react,” he added.

Beyer said the start date of March 15 is “arbitrary” and preferred the board pick their own date.

“What I don’t like is the feeling of being pushed on this timeline by politicians in Raleigh that are not in our community,” she said.

Before voting, Valladares expressed concern about how 2,850 students had transferred out of the district in the beginning of the school year.

“I don’t want us to lose any more students. I don’t want any more high school dropouts,” she said. “I also don’t want any more of our students to be so developmentally behind because, you know, they were not able to get the support they needed early on.”

Lewis didn’t vote for the plan because she supports SB 37, she said. But she felt reassured about how school leaders aim to give as many as 1,000 vaccines a week to teachers, she said, and trusted the district would be as safe as possible.

“I feel like the time is now to do it safely, as the numbers are declining, and we know more about the virus and how to mitigate risk,” she said.

COVID-19 guidelines

The Durham school district will follow safety and health guidelines in the Strong Schools NC Public Health Toolkit (K-12). That means following five mitigation strategies described by the CDC as “essential to safe delivery of in-person instruction,” according to the presentation.

Those strategies include wearing masks provided by the district, social distancing with directional arrows, frequent cleaning, and daily screening of COVID-19 symptoms and contact tracing.

Chief Operating Officer Julius Monk said the district is improving air flow in schools by installing MERV-13 air filters. The upgraded filters can help trap small particles, including those from viruses, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Staff will disinfect buses between bus routes, and nutritional staff will schedule meals to be consumed with at least six-feet of physical distance between students and staff.

This story was updated February 20, 2021, to clarify school start dates.

This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 7:17 PM.