Students quarantined because of COVID? Wake promises a better plan to educate them
The Wake County school system is promising to do a better job of providing instruction for students who will be quarantined this school year due to COVID-19.
Last school year, many parents complained that quarantined students did not receive meaningful instruction when they were required to stay home for up to two weeks. On Tuesday, Wake County school administrators presented a plan to provide quarantined students with better access to their teachers and to instructional material.
“There is a plan and there is encompassing language that directs how every school will remain engaged with students who are quarantined,” Superintendent Cathy Moore said Tuesday. “The execution of that plan will look different from school to school and quite frankly the implementation will probably vary based on the daily demands of teacher and school.
“But we are confident that this approach offers the best opportunity for students to learn over the course of a full year, especially given the limits of resources.”
Students who are quarantined are supposed to have daily communication with their teachers and “access to meaningful and aligned learning resources.” Quarantined students aren’t supposed to go multiple days without hearing individualized communication from their teachers.
But families complained that, in practice, quarantining has resulted in getting paper packets to use at home and little contact with teachers.
Keeping quarantined students connected
Under the new district guidance for quarantining :
▪ All teachers will have a “landing page” in Canvas or Google Classroom that students can access.
▪ Schools will provide regular live office hour times for students.
▪ When feasible, the district will provide instructional support and live office hours to supplement what schools provide.
▪ When an entire classroom has to quarantine, the class will become virtual when feasible. This will include live online instruction during the quarantine.
The updated guidance comes as the majority of Wake’s 160,000 students will begin the new school year on Monday. Students at Wake’s year-round schools that started in July have dealt with quarantines as more than 300 COVID cases have been reported in August on the district’s coronavirus dashboard.
Moore said it’s important that students and staff follow the district’s health guidance to reduce the risk of being exposed and quarantined. While quarantines are effective, she said they also disrupt academic instruction and family work schedules.
“For those who are exposed, there is a plan to ensure that students can keep up with their lessons,” Moore said. “It’s not as good as in-person instruction. We have acknowledged that point from the earliest days of the pandemic.
Seating charts to identify close contacts
One of the issues with quarantining is determining who has been in close contact to students and school employees who’ve tested positive for COVID-19.
Wake will tighten down on using seating charts in classrooms, elementary and middle school cafeterias, and on school buses to help determine who is a close contact. Students will also be grouped for lunch, recess and other activities.
Moore said that cases where schools haven’t kept tight control of the seating charts has led to a higher number of students being quarantined.
Moore also said that the district is looking at posting online how many students are being quarantined.
One of the reason givens for continuing to require face masks in schools is that it could lessen the need for quarantining.
Under county health rules, students can in some cases avoid quarantining or have their quarantine length reduced if they and the person who tested positive both were wearing face masks.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 3:23 PM.
