Name: 'Monumental challenges' face NC schools as they prepare to reopen
Uploaded: 2020-06-11T20:12:34-0400
Duration: 647866
Description: State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson says North Carolina school districts have to plan for full classrooms, half-full classrooms and remote learning this fall as schools try to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic.

We’re also following the flight delays and tomorrow’s impacts after a plane crash at RDU. Plus, Only on WRAL, why a high school student is not allowed to participate in one of the most important events of his life.. and how he and his family are fighting for him to graduate. Watch WRAL-TV at 11 p.m., and search for these and other stories on WRAL.com.

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State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson says North Carolina school districts have to plan for full classrooms, half-full classrooms and remote learning this fall as schools try to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic.

before we get to August 17th which is the scheduled date for classes to resume. We have to see how the data looked on July 1st. Earlier this week, the state laid out guidance for District, asking them to be prepared to implement one of three plans, depending on the severity of the potential pandemic in North Carolina. Joining us now to discuss the plans to return to the classroom is state Superintendent Mark Johnson. Mark, thank you for joining us. We know it's been a busy few weeks for you and your team, and it's going to stay busy. But we want to make sure that we have the plans that will help get as many students back into classrooms as safely as possible. So let's start with the plan unveiled this week, with districts being asked to come up with three levels of response. How our district leaders responding to this plan as is it's something they feel they can make happen. This is gonna be a huge challenge. So earlier this week we got the three plans from the Department of Health and Human Services that the governor is going to decide by July 1st, whether under plan a Plan B or Plan C Plan A means. Let's get as many students back into school as safely as possible while holding some back who may have health risks. Some teachers may have health risks. We've got to make sure we take the extra steps for them. Plan C is the complete opposite end where if the metrics air as bad as they were earlier this year, we have to close schools and we all have to stay at home. Nobody wants that. But Plan B is that middle ground where you need to socially distance it schools. And we know how challenging that can be six feet apart in a school bus in a classroom. That is a daunting challenge, and a lot of local school leaders and teachers have been letting us know this is going to be very hard to accomplish, and we are here to support our local teachers and school leaders. We want to make sure that as the Department of Public Instruction, the education agency and Raleigh, we're giving them the guidance that can help make that happen. It's not gonna be easy answers, but if we're not under plan A If Governor Cooper has toe put us under plan B. We're gonna make some sacrifices to make sure that we can still have learning occur in the classroom as much as possible. How much notice will they have prior to August 17th for which plan they will be executing? Well, I am grateful. The Department of Health and Human Services has said that they will let us know by July 1st what plan they expect us to be in for back to so shortly after July 1st you should around around July 1st we should know. But they also say, just as they have with everything else in this crisis, that those metrics could change and the guidance could change. So we got to make sure that we're supporting school districts and they're ready for whatever plan we enter into a well. And this is a lot of information for the district's and for parents to filter through. Based on the plan unveiled this week, let's dio scenario. If Wake County were to move forward with Plan B, what would a typical day look like at one of our high schools? Plan B is gonna be what people are fearful of being so different, you're gonna have less than half of the school bus filled with students. So that means how do we get all the students to school? So there might be that alternate a day be day, you're gonna get to school, and the school is not going to be allowed to have more than half of its capacity at the school. So again, you're gonna have to look into ways. Can you use extra space around schools as classroom space so that students can spread out? Are you gonna have to ask students to who can to stay at home and do remote learning on some days and then come in on other days? That's a huge challenge for working parents. And it's not just working parents who go to an office. We're also talking about other teachers are first responders who are out there saving lives. These air monumental challenges. Luckily, we still have weeks ahead to plan. Local school districts are planning. They now have guidance from the Department health on human services on what the plans will be and what will be required. And they also have operational strategies from our department, the Education Agency but it doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Well, and on top of all of this and the frustrations that go along with this, this is gonna be costly. Even before the pandemic schools often placed cleaning wipes and hand sanitizer on the school supply list. Will the district's have the money and the resource is to make sure classrooms are stocked? Or will parents be asked to supplement? Well, we're not going to go out and ask parents to supplement now. Obviously, we will always accept donations from parents, and we're grateful for that. And that actually you're right during the normal school year helps us get through the normal school year. But this is something that has to be done by the school district's themselves. So we have to make sure we support that need. We're looking at what those costs are gonna be. We got very large federal age packages of $2 billion almost and $500 million just to go out to local school district's. So we're using that to make sure we close some of the remote learning connectivity gaps. If heaven forbid, we have to switch to remote learning, but also that money is probably going to be used by school districts to buy those cleaning supplies. So we're gonna look very closely at how far that money goes, and we will know if it's going to be enough or if it's not gonna be enough. And if it's not there already talks in Washington D. C. About another relief package before we will you go. We want to talk about the meals program in the bandwidth for the summertime, our families who rely on the meals able to get them, given the demand since March and what re sources are available if families are looking for help. Yes, the first answer is yes. Actually, every summer we keep school cafeterias open because we know while it's unfortunate, there are students who rely on those school meals to get the proper nutrition, and we want to make sure that students get that nutrition so those facilities will be open just like there every summer. If students need food from schools, they'll get that food. But also we need We are seeing more and more reliance on charities, So food banks, for example, have been Sochi during this crisis. And if there's anything that anyone who's getting back on their feet can do to help its start to look at ways that you could help support those local charities. Yeah, this issue is not going away any time soon. State Superintendent Mark Johnson, with an update on the conversations going on to return to school this fall. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. All right to Mark looking ahead to next school year when Children are back in the classrooms. How were you planning to transport them to school? School buses are typically very full. Don't allow much room for social distancing. Are their ideas on the table about that? Yes, but there's no easy solution. So under Plan A from the Department of Health and Human Services, we would be allowed to get more students on a school bus as safely as possible in order to transport them to school. And that is our hope. But if we moved to Plan B when we're not even allowed to have more than 50% capacity on a school bus, that's gonna be a significant challenge. And so we're gonna have to look at. Does that mean we need toe run mawr bus routes are Do we have to really try to find mawr flexibility? So we get more bus drivers trained and employed more quickly so that we can run more buses at one time. These air some tough questions that we are now looking at with local superintendents. If heaven forbid it comes to pass that we are under that plan B. But those are some of the issues. And if we can't do that, we're gonna be looking at Maybe some students have to stay and do some remote learning. As we alternate days. It's gonna be extremely difficult. And again, we hope that we could be under plan a going in the next school year. This is just one more question I have, how our parents telling what plan or parents telling you that they want to be on for the most part, where the majority wanting the kids to go back to the classroom? Or are they afraid? There are as many different opinions about this as there are citizens of North Carolina, and I can tell you they range everywhere from we don't need anything to change. We've got to get back into school exactly like we did last August. We need every extracurricular activity to be honorable, interrupted. We need students to go to the cafeteria all the way ranging to parents who are already decided. They're not sitting there child to school. And they need to rely on some kind of remote learning because their child may have severe asthma, are maybe in the high risk and or another, another way. And they are even saying we're gonna homeschool our Children because we were so worried. So there is no majority since right now what we will see hopefully in the next few weeks. Now that we have the plans, Plan A, B and C and we have operational strategies to address those plans. Will probably seeing more and more local districts survey their parents and asked their parents, What do you want to see out of the return to school next school year? Can this be ah district by district decision, or is it going to be one plan A, B or C for the whole state? We have been told by the governor's team that they planned for this to be one plan Plan A B or C for the whole state unless it's possible to do it by regions. I don't think you'll see this on a district by district decision, but you could see it by regions. But they have indicated their plan a Plan B Plan C will likely be for the entire state. And any district's that want to implement mawr. Aggressive policies are allowed to. They just can't do less than the plan the governor puts in place for schools. Mark, thanks so much for your time. You're always so forthcoming with your answers. We appreciate your thoroughness as well as your time and all the hard work you're doing. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Marco. Thanks. Appreciate all the work you are doing. Thanks. Right? Yes. Thanks. Bye.

Debra Morgan

Matthew Burns

'Monumental challenges' face NC schools as they prepare to reopen

Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson,coronavirus,coronavirus learning,education

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I'm meteorologist K Campbell in the wr a severe weather center. It's been a warm spring so far. In fact, when you look at the spring to date numbers, it's actually the second warmest on record at RDU running about 4.5 degrees above normal and for rainfall about an inch and a half below normal. And we really need some rain. You know, it's been a pretty dry April so far we've seen less than an inch inch of rain this month tomorrow. It's a nice dry day for us, but I, you know, at least it's gonna be a nice day, right? 72 in the Triangle, as well as Siler City in Wilson. 70 in Rocky Mount. 67 though in Roxboro and 67 for Roanoke Rapids, a little cooler to the north. 76 degrees in Fayetteville, 73 Goldsboro in Smithfield and 75 in Southern Pines. It is going to be a little bit cooler in the morning because cold front moved through 50 degrees for the low in the triangle, right around 7 a.m. by 10 a.m. We're in the upper fifties, lunchtime, mid sixties and then in the lower seventies during the afternoon, dinner time, temperatures dip back into the upper sixties. A cold front passed earlier this evening and behind it, we are going to be drying out but cooling down briefly. It's not a huge drop in temperatures, but we will see this dip in the jet stream delivering some cooler air. We start to see a reversal of the jet stream flow and that changes really on Sunday with a warming southwest wind at the surface and at the jet stream level, that's going to drive temperatures up to 80 beginning on Sunday and the eighties will last into next week with a strengthening ridge of high pressure. So we expect a big climb in temperatures just throughout the course of the weekend, 48 degrees Friday morning, but back up to 80 by Sunday afternoon and then much warmer weather is on the way for next week. We're looking at seventies for the next few days with mostly cloudy skies for the weekend days. The sun's back out though next Monday and with a warming wind, we're back in the upper eighties three days in a row all the way up to 89 on Tuesday. Tuesday might be the 1st 90 degree day of the year for parts of North Carolina.

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Nightly N.C. Education Lottery drawings during the 11 p.m. News.

Good evening. I'm Gayle Hurd. Welcome to tonight's drawings for Wednesday, April 24th, 2024. Well, let's get started tonight with our Carolina pick three. Our first winning number is a seven. Our second number is six and the third number tonight is a nine and our pick three. Fireball number is six. Joining me for tonight's show is our auditor from mcconnell and Jones L LP. Now let's move to the Carolina pick four. Good luck. Everyone who's that first winning pick four number, it's zero. Our second number is a nine. Third number tonight is three and our fourth number is one in our pick for fireball number. There it is. It's three. Again, we're turning now to the Carolina cash five and no one was the top prize tonight. Tomorrow's top prize is estimated at $620,000. Good luck. Everyone here's their first win in cash five number. It's a 29. Our second number, it's 37 3rd number tonight. It's 34. Our fourth number is lucky 13 and the final number in our cash five this evening is 12. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education. Get your winning numbers right here every night on your exclusive station for the North Carolina Education lottery. Thanks for playing. Have a great night.

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Ball. Good evening, Ruan, I Randy trainer. Tonight. We have another life changing jackpot. It's worth an estimated $130.2 million. So, get your tickets ready here. Come, tonight's winning numbers. Let's start things off this evening with the number 26. Right after that America. We have the number two and congratulations to Gina Magnum from North Carolina. She won $50,000 playing powerball. All right, the rest of your winning numbers tonight 20 47. And let's round it out tonight with the number 22 and tonight 20 powerball number, that's gonna be 21 and your power play multiplayer is four. Let's take another look at tonight's winning numbers. We'll see you back here on Saturday night. It's time to play America's favorite.

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Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings are held at 3 p.m. daily. They can be seen as live or on-demand video.

Good afternoon. I'm Luis Fernandez. Welcome to this afternoon's drawings for Wednesday, April 24th, 2024. Let's get started with Carolina pick three. The first pick three number is two, second is eight and the third is eight and our pick three fireball number is five. Join me for this afternoon's drawing is our auditor for mcconnell LP. Now let's move to Carolina pick four. The first pick four, number is five. The second is one, the third is three and the fourth is zero and our pick four. Fireball number is five. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education and thanks for your support.

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 Drawing

Brian Shrader flies over the site of a plane crash at Raleigh-Durham International Airport approximately three hours after the accident.

Seen some activity just in the past 10 minutes or so. I want to take you outside Sky five right now for a live look at the scene. We saw a van being escorted to the runway there and someone got out and now there appears to be a really careful inspection of the debris going on. So we're working to confirm if that may be the NTSB investigation team arriving at the scene. Let's zoom out and give you some about where this is. There are two main runways at RDU International and this is in the grassy field next to the runway that mostly serves terminal one on the east side of the airport, that runway remains closed while this investigation continues at the top of your screen. That is the other main runway that serves terminal two, mostly that runway is open. So we have two things going on here that could affect your flights for the rest of the day and maybe even into tomorrow, the airport takeoff and landing capacity is roughly reduced by half because they are only working with one runway. And if you have a flight coming out of terminal one, maybe Southwest, you're going to have to take that crossover all the way out to that other runway. It's going to add a lot of extra time.

Sky 5 flies over RDU plane crash 3 hours later 

A UNC Health physician and pilot were taken to the hospital Wednesday after a small plane crashed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU).


Sky 5 flies over plane crash at RDU

RDU Airport Authority gives an update on a plane crash that sent a physician and pilot to the hospital. The crash occurred Wednesday morning on a flight that took off from Wilmington.

<p>Landguth first, I want to extend my thoughts to those affected by this morning's aircraft accident and thank our first responders for their quick action to respond. The airport authority and its mutual aid partners responded to an aircraft accident at RDU involving a general aviation aircraft. The accident occurred at approximately 10:10 a.m. in the grass next to runway five, right 23 left. The flight was arriving from Wilmington, North Carolina. The A the aircraft is owned by medical Air Inc and operated by UN C air operations. The aircraft had two people on board, one pilot and one passenger. Both were transported to area hospitals. The federal A Bush administration issued a ground stop that was lifted at approximately 1130 this morning. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have both been notified. The National Transportation Safety Board is en route and expected to arrive within the next hour at which time we will conduct an accident investigation. Rdu's runway five left 23 right reopened to departing and arriving aircraft around 11:30 a.m. this morning. Are you experiencing approximately 70 delays and several arriving flights were diverted to other airports? Until ground stock was lifted, travelers should contact their airline for the latest updates regarding the flight status. And of course questions about the identity and condition of the pilot and passenger should be directed to UN C health. And at this time I'll try to answer any questions. You may have, uh, the one, any other accidents in, in the past. I'm not familiar with any other accidents have occurred with that operation. I don't know, uh, that's the role of the National Transportation Safety Board. They'll actually come in and do the investigation. Uh, and at some point in the future, they write up a report and determine what the cause of the accident was. You know, that there was no notification to the airport authority or to the FAA uh about any type of emergency on board. Do we have a guy? We don't, all we know that we've got them out of the airplane and we've got them transported to local hospitals. We know situations like this and delays have a ripple effect on, you know, flights. Do you have any idea what type of impact we'll see here in our view and for not sure, but what we're going to encourage everybody to do is reach out to your airlines. We'll be able to give you real time information about the impact of your particular flight. Ok. I believe some of them went to Greensboro and I think a couple went to Charlotte as well. What, what to be impacted due to the NTSD. Say that one more time at this point in time, what we call the west side of our airport is now open the investigation they'll conduct will all be on the east side. So at this point, we are anticipating normal operations returning to normal operations from this point forward. I don't think that anything that they're doing regarding the investigation or where they would have to investigate would have any impact to the west side of the airport. No, the aircraft is still on the airfield itself. It's on the east side of the field. So terminal one that runways the east side of the field, that's where the debris field actually sits, the west side of the field is open and operational and safe to operate. Not that I'm aware of in operations for you throughout this event today. What was your main concern concerning the passengers that were in the internals? Right. I think our primary focus when, when that accident occurred were the two people sitting in that aircraft? Our primary mission is to make sure we can get to them and try to rescue them and try to make sure that we can get them in a safe condition as fast as we possibly can. Uh secondarily is trying to figure out then how we recover and get our operations back up and running. Mhm. How does that affect? What goes on term? Yeah, so great. Question. So the team has figured out a way to get all the aircraft they're gonna operate at terminal one. Your Southwest develops. Uh We've got a crossover taxi way that we can actually get them through our general aviation aircraft. We've got a crossover taxiway, we can get them to. But the rest of the uh accident scene is actually kind of isolated and closed and locked off. Yeah, you're terminal one at this point in time. Once they can get back on their schedule, it's going to be a normal operations. All right. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Grab your phone, right.</p>

'Monumental challenges' face NC schools as they prepare to reopen

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