NC Senate passes COVID-19 bill. What it could mean for school calendar, virtual learning
With schools out for the rest of the academic year, except for online learning, the House and Senate are ironing out how to spend COVID-19 response money and waive requirements when so much is still uncertain amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But both chambers agree on starting school Aug. 17 in the coming school year — a week earlier than usual.
The mid-August date for traditional-calendar schools was first proposed in the House COVID-19 education committee’s draft bill and is also part of the Senate’s comprehensive coronavirus response bill. The Senate Appropriations committee, which oversees the budget, reviewed SB 704, the COVID-19 Relief Act on Wednesday.
The Senate voted 48-0 to pass the bill, with some amendments, including an extra $22 million for the Department of Public Instruction to provide funds for school nutrition programs across the state.
A sticking point between senators on Wednesday was something that’s not in the House bill: a June 30 deadline for detailed remote instructions plans for the 2020-21 school year. However, that was later resolved with an amendment that extended the deadline until July 20. Still, the entire Senate will have to approve it.
All of North Carolina’s public schools have switched to teaching students online since Gov. Roy Cooper ordered school buildings closed on March 14. The school days are generally shorter, with schools saying they have to take into consideration that some families are struggling and not all 1.5 million students have the same internet capabilities for online learning.
“A piece of legislation that says we need to prove that online learning gets the same outcomes as in-person learning sets us up for failure,” Angie Scioli, the founder of the Red4EdNC teachers group, said in an interview Wednesday. “If our legislature is so out of touch that they don’t know that, they need to get in touch with teachers.”
While nearly all the senators are co-sponsors of the bill, Democrats were raising most of the questions about it.
Although the House held several COVID-19 response committee meetings for the past month, including education, Wednesday was the first day a Senate committee has met publicly. The first day of the General Assembly session was Tuesday.
Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Wake County Democrat, said that a provision requiring remote learning to be commensurate with traditional classroom learning sets “an unrealistic standard.”
Chaudhuri is a parent and said each child in his household is responding differently to remote learning, as other students are, too.
A later amendment to the bill changed wording to say that remote learning plans must have “work measurement guidelines appropriate to each grade level,” including deadlines to submit assignments as well as how to assess and grade remote learning.
Sen. Deanna Ballard, a Boone Republican, said local school districts will develop plans as a starting point.
Flexibility considered
Senate Republicans are also willing to negotiate on waiving the requirement to keep continuing progress on reducing class sizes in kindergarten through third grades next year. The House included the class-size waiver in its bill.
Sen. Rick Horner, a Nash County Republican, wants to give local school districts flexibility with K-3 class size reduction in the coming year.
Sen. Harry Brown, a Jacksonville Republican, wants to be conservative with state spending until they know how much flexibility they’ll have with federal money.
Scioli, a social studies teacher at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, said Red4EdNC is disappointed that so many Democratic senators joined the bill as sponsors without considering the impact of the remote learning provision.
“It’s creating an impossible standard for us to try to meet, and that will be another way for the Republicans to claim that public schools are failing,” Scioli said. “That’s problematic.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 5:01 PM.
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