Wake and Johnston are bringing middle and high school students back for daily classes
Updated March 23 with Wake County saying K-5 students can also choose to enter or leave Virtual Academy by April 1.
Wake and Johnston counties — two of North Carolina’s largest school districts — will resume full-time, daily in-person instruction in all of their schools for the first time in more than a year.
The Wake County school board voted 6-3 on Monday to switch middle schools and high schools from a hybrid of in-person and online classes to Plan A daily in-person classes, with minimal social distancing requirements. It will start April 5 with modified-calendar schools and early college high schools.
Traditional-calendar schools will switch on April 8, and year-round calendar schools will switch April 14. Students who have been getting limited in-person classes will switch on the new dates. But students leaving the Virtual Academy may not get an in-person seat until April 19.
The vote comes as some teachers say it’s still not safe to bring so many students back on campus as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
“We know what the practices are to implement Plan A safely,” Wake Superintendent Cathy Moore said before the vote. “There is no risk-free proposition in any of this. Our teachers are the front-line workers in the classroom with what we’re asking of them, and they have responded along the way.”
Also on Monday, the Johnston County school board unanimously voted to switch middle and high schools to Plan A, starting April 12. Students will get four days a week of in-person classes, with Wednesdays being a remote learning day so schools can be deep cleaned and to help teachers who will work with both in-person and online students.
“It’s not 100% normalcy,” said Johnston Superintendent Eric Bracy. “It’s a large step toward normalcy.”
Due to COVID-19 concerns, middle and high school students have taken mostly online courses for the past year. But now they’ll join elementary school students, who already are attending daily in-person classes.
Only students who signed up for each district’s Virtual Academy programs will receive just online courses. But both districts will allow students to leave or join the virtual program before the school year ends.
Johnston and Wake join at least 40 of the state’s 115 school districts who have voted this month to switch to Plan A for middle and high schools, according to a N.C. School Boards Association database.
The changes are going into effect because of a new school reopening law that was signed March 11 requiring districts to offer an option of operating schools on Plan A.
Wake is North Carolina’s largest district, with 158,000 students. Johnston is the state’s seventh-largest, with 36,000 students.
Social distancing reduced
Districts are required under the state law to operate elementary schools on Plan A. They can operate middle and high schools on Plan A or Plan B.
Schools that operate on Plan A must follow safety precautions, including requiring face coverings and taking daily temperature checks of students and school employees. But they’re only required to provide social distancing “to the extent possible,” as opposed to the 6-foot requirement in middle and high schools that’s required in Plan B.
Districts must offer Plan A to all special-education students, even if they stay in Plan B at secondary schools.
Some districts, such as Chatham County, still plan to stay on Plan B where they can. But to comply with the new state law, the school board voted Monday to move fourth- and fifth-grade students to Plan A starting April 12.
Chatham will also offer Plan A, starting April 12, to middle and high school students who have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or a 504 plan.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines on Friday saying K-12 students can safely sit in classrooms 3 feet apart.
The CDC is still recommending keeping space at least 6 feet apart in middle and high schools if there is high level of COVID-19 spread in the community.
But the ABC Science Collaborative, a group formed by Duke University to advise on school reopening, says schools can safely operate with 3 feet of social distancing as long as they follow proper safety protocols such as requiring face masks.
Schedule changes for students, teachers
Due to Plan B, Johnston has been offering two days a week of in-person classes for older students. Wake has been offering in-person classes one week out of every three weeks.
Switching to daily in-person instruction will both increase the number of students on campus and lead to schedule changes. Some students will see new teachers for some of their classes as schools juggle class assignments.
Drew Cook, Wake’s assistant superintendent for academics, said the number of scheduling changes will vary by school depending on how many students choose to enter or leave the Virtual Academy.
The large number of teacher changes is one of the reasons why Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools won’t switch middle schools and high schools to Plan A this school year.
The additional students will also pose challenges for how schools handle meals, which are one of the few times in the day that face masks are allowed to be removed.
Some parents have complained that Wake’s lunch rules are too strict. Edward McFarland, Wake’s chief academic advancement officer, said the district is in the process of reviewing the meal guidelines.
“It was never our goal to put the entire student body in a silent lunch,” McFarland said. “But that is how our lunch guidance has been interpreted in some places, and we own that.”
McFarland also said high schools will allow juniors and seniors to leave campus for lunch if they have parental permission.
The more crowded school conditions and schedule changes so close to the end of the school year caused Wake school board members Monika Johnson-Hostler, Jim Martin and Heather Scott to vote against moving to Plan A.
“My gut tells me this is a little too much, that this recommendation is too much at once and it’s so much disruption,” Scott said.
Giving families a choice
Students who don’t want the in-person classes can take classes via remote learning.
Bracy said Johnston County schools will have three days to respond to requests from families to leave or enter the virtual program.
Families of Wake County students will have until April 1 to request if they want to be in the Virtual Academy or have in-person classes. Depending on the demand at that school, it could take until April 19 for some students to move from the Virtual Academy to Plan A.
Wake says the option to enter or leave the Virtual Academy will also be extended to elementary students, not just middle and high schoolers. Wake had previously told Virtual Academy students they had to stay for the whole semester but now they say the new state law overrides that decision.
Cook said the number of students who switch between the Virtual Academy will also affect how much schools are able to provide a normal classroom environment.
“We’re not again talking about a return to normal,” Cook said. “There are certainly challenges. But we also believe that there are some significant benefits, both instructionally and from a social-emotional standpoint, for our secondary students to be able to gain at what this point they have not been able to access on the same scale.”
Calendar changes for schools
Schedule changes will need to be made due to the switch.
▪ Johnston County will make March 31 an in-person day for all elementary students and for cohort B students in middle and high schools. April 1 will become a remote learning day for all students.
▪ Wake County traditional-calendar schools will move a teacher workday from May 13 to April 7.
▪ Wake County modified-calendar schools will move a teacher workday from June 15 to April 1.
▪ Wake County’s leadership academies, college and career academies, Knightdale High School and Wake Early College of Health and Science will move a teacher workday from May 13 to April 1.
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 5:50 PM.
