‘Parents are scared’ as Wake schools prepare to reopen amid surge in COVID cases
New COVID-19 cases are soaring in the community and in schools as Wake County prepares to bring back the most students it’s had on campus since before the pandemic.
On Monday, most of Wake County’s 160,000 students will attend in-person classes as traditional-calendar schools hold their first day. But the surge in COVID-19 cases from the highly contagious delta variant is causing some Wake County parents to question how safe conditions will be for in-person instruction.
“I’m feeling trapped,” Katie Williams, a North Raleigh parent of a child entering first grade, said in an interview. “I feel like the only option you have is to send them to school or home-school them if you’re worried about them catching COVID.”
Wake County school leaders say they’re taking safety precautions such as requiring face masks and assigning seats in the lunchroom.
But one thing Wake says it’s not doing, despite requests from some families, is to reopen the application period for the Virtual Academy.
“The start of the 2021-22 school year has not been routine for year-round schools and likely will not be routine obviously for traditional-calendar schools either,” Superintendent Cathy Moore said at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “The recent increase in positive COVID cases, coupled with an extremely tight labor market, have assured us of this fact.”
Moore said the key is to follow health and safety guidelines to limit, as much as possible, exposure to COVID-19.
“The biggest challenge that we will face at every grade level in 21-22 is limiting exposures,” Moore said. “Again, masks and vaccines are critical here. When that does not work, our colleagues in Public Health turn to quarantines.”
Schools full as COVID cases rise
Most Wake County schools have operated on reduced capacity since March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Last school year, the majority of Wake students attended the Virtual Academy.
But enrollment in the Virtual Academy is down to 10,700 students. More than 90% of Wake’s students are slated to attend in-person classes this school year.
Wake schools will be operating at nearly full capacity at a time when the state’s COVID-19 test positivity is above 10% — twice the recommended rate. Health officials say Wake County saw a 972% increase in positive COVID-19 cases from June 1 to Aug. 9.
More than 300 confirmed and pending COVID-19 cases have been reported in August on the school system’s coronavirus dashboard at a time when mainly only year-round schools are in session. At least six Wake County schools are reporting active COVID-19 clusters.
“We can’t realistically open the schools on Aug. 23 safely,” Meaghan Mullowney Poulin, a Cary parent, said in an interview. “Kids under 12 aren’t vaccinated.”
But other parents contend that concerns about COVID-19 are overstated and plan to protest at Tuesday’s school board meeting. They want the board to reverse its Aug. 3 decision to require face masks for the start of the new school year.
Chuck Tryon, a Holly Springs parent, said he’d have kept his 8-year-old grand daughter at home if Wake had dropped the mask mandate. But Tryon said he’s worried about whether his daughter’s classmates will be as good in following school health and safety protocols.
“A lot of other kids, in most cases following the lead of their parents, aren’t as cautious and concerned, which is what we’re worried about,” Tryon said in an interview.
No admissions to Virtual Academy
With the surge in COVID cases, Wake has seen parents make last-minute requests to enroll in the Virtual Academy
“People are saying we need to be all virtual because it’s worse than it was last year,” Kira Kroboth, a Raleigh parent, said in an interview. “Parents are scared, rightfully so. I know there’s a petition to open up Virtual Academy again.”
But last week, Wake announced that there would be no new admissions or transfers into or out of the Virtual Academy because the program is at full capacity for the majority of grade levels.
Wake cited factors such as how a third of schools had already started the school year and the remaining schools will open soon. District leaders said that there would be “chaos” if they allowed hundreds of students to move in and out of the Virtual Academy now.
“Class schedules are set, students have been assigned to teachers and school bus routes are nearly finalized,” the district said on its website. “There is simply no more room — or time to find and hire additional staff — to accommodate shifts among classes or schools.”
Drew Cook, assistant superintendent for academics, told the school board on Tuesday they don’t have the ability to add more students to the Virtual Academy. Wake has an 18.5% vacancy rate for Virtual Academy teachers.
Cook said they could free up more Virtual Academy seats by forcing some in-person students to switch to virtual classes — a step he said they’re not ready to do at this time.
At this point, Wake says only students “who meet very specific criteria for extenuating circumstances” will be allowed into the academy. According to a district statement, there’s no specific written criteria but “extenuating circumstances usually have to do with medical and/or special education issues.”
‘Negligent’ not to reopen Virtual Academy registration
In the spring, Wake school leaders said they’d evaluate reopening registration for the Virtual Academy if there was a spike in COVID-19 cases.
“Leadership did re-evaluate, and determined that at this time, there is not sufficient reason to reopen Virtual Academy registration,” the district said in a statement.
As hard as it is, Kroboth says Wake needs to do its job and find a way to let more families into the Virtual Academy. Due to her son’s concerns, Kroboth pulled him of Moore Square Middle School in Raleigh after only four days of in-person classes. He’s back at the N.C. Virtual Academy, an online charter school.
“It’s very negligent on the school district’s part that they haven’t had a backup plan in place because we knew this was a very strong possibility of delta causing a surge,” Kroboth said. “We knew what could very well happen.”
‘We’re in this together’
At this point, Mullowney Poulin, the Cary parent, says the resumption of in-person instruction needs to be delayed or parents need to do more to protect their children from risk of COVID exposure.
Mullowney Poulin says North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper needs to have a frank talk with the public about keeping children out of crowds to help get the COVID numbers down. She said children are “sitting ducks” for the virus.
“There has to be a message we’re in this together,” Mullowney Poulin said. “We want to move forward together. Even if you don’t like the rules, you need to suck it up to reduce transmission.”
Williams, the North Raleigh parent, says she goes back and forth on whether to send her daughter to in-person classes next week. She homeschooled her daughter last year.
“We’ve had to make so many decisions that are completely impossible,” Williams said. “Weighing the benefits of extracurriculars, going to a friend’s pool or house. This is just the burden that we’ve had since March 2020, and this is another.”
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 2:56 PM.
