NC DHHS plans to slim down school COVID-19 rules

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services plans to update its COVID-19 rules for public schools soon, officials said, Thursday as the department also anticipates the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to soon update their school guidelines.

The rules will be scaled down only to what DHHS has found to be effective measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Chief Deputy Secretary Susan Gale Perry said. Agency officials will also try to leave room for school districts with different vaccination rates and rates of COVID-19 spread to set requirements that differ from one another.

“So I think you can expect to see fewer overall recommendations,” Gale Perry told the North Carolina State Board of Education and the board’s July meeting Thursday.

DHHS officials will use the ABC Science Collaborative’s research on COVID-19 spread in schools to help inform math guidance.

Schools have also and will continue to conduct random COVID-19 testing upon entry to schools, with individual permission. Such testing can help detect asymptomatic cases of the virus before a person is able to potentially expose more people to the virus.

North Carolina has received more than $300 million in federal grant funding to conduct testing at schools this next school year. The funding can also be used to hire new staff or train staff to conduct the testing, potentially relieving existing school nurses of some of their extra responsibilities during the pandemic.

North Carolina already has a shortage of school nurses, compared to state goals and national recommendations.

The impact of adding help at schools, under the federal funding, “cannot be overemphasized,” State School Health Nurse Consultant Ann Nichols said.

State Health Director Betsy Tilson said vaccination will be key for the state, nation and world to move on from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

But only people 12 years old and older can receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and health experts don’t expect approval of a vaccine for younger children before the next school year begins.

Of the state’s 12-17 year olds, about 25% are vaccinated, DHHS reported Thursday. More than 50% of the state’s adults are vaccinated.

Only 45 of the North Carolina’s about 200 charter schools opted to do a summer learning program for COVID-19 learning recovery.

Charter schools weren’t subject to the state law passed this spring — SL2021-7 — that required public school districts to offer the summer programs.

Schools across North Carolina are planning for extra learning opportunities after the summer, as well.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction approved all 115 public school districts’ summer extended learning plans by the end of May.

DPI Deputy Director of the Office of Learning Recovery Lynne Barbour presented an overview of the programs to the State Board of Education at its July meeting Thursday.

All programs are including required Read to Achieve camps

Most schools opted for 150 hours of summer learning instead of 30 days

Most schools are using i-Ready for competency based assessments required for kindergarten through eighth grades

Most schools aren’t including summer bridge or jump start programs

State officials will be making visits and doing observations at many schools through August.

They’ve already visited a few.

Barbour said she’s seen some counties have taken innovate approaches to putting on summer school.

For example, Surry County hired teaching students and interns to work alongside veteran teachers to increase instructional staff.

“I think we all look forward to the data coming out of this summer and the wonderful things it will show us,” Board Member Jill Camnitz said, calling the numbers she’s heard so far of students enrolled and educators who agreed to teach “inspirational.”

Read to Achieve summer learning camps have historically enrolled far fewer students than invited — only about a quarter to a third of students at risk of not progressing to the next grade level because of reading. Most who attend the camps do not end up progressing to the next grade level.

School officials have been more optimistic about attendance this summer because of increased efforts to reach families. They’ve contended that not all students may end up scoring at grade level after the summer programs but that all students could still grow from the programs.

Some education experts argue longer school days during the school year, or another method of keeping students with the same teacher for longer, can be more effective than summer learning.

Education officials will have a better picture of how students fared during the regular school year and during the summer programs in the coming months.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction plans to present state end-of-grade and end-of-course test results from the spring to the State Board of Education at the board’s September meeting.

At the board's August meeting, the board will also decide who the “cut scores” — or, cutoff score between passing and failing — will be under some new assessments implemented this last school year.

A report on summer school performance is due by January.

Two charter schools that had yet to open had their charter agreements with the state revoked Thursday, on a vote from the State Board of Education. The state Charter School Advisory Board made the recommendation to the Board of Education after the schools did not meet the state’s requirements for opening in August.

The board approved, without dissent during a consent item vote, revoking the conditional charter agreements for CE Academy in Cary and Elaine Riddick Charter School in Hertford. Both had already delayed their openings and were eventually set to open next month.

But the state found CE Academy officials had only been able to enroll 13 students for the fall — not enough to meet the state charter school enrollment requirement of 80 students — and were unable to prove they had hired any staff.

Elaine Riddick Charter School officials never obtained tax-exempt status for the school, which is required within two years of the charter application’s approval. They also never secured an Education Certificate of Occupancy for the intended school building.

CE Academy, for kindergarten through second grades, was supposed to be Wake County’s first bilingual Mandarin Chinese charter school.

Elaine Riddick Charter School intended to teach kindergarten through fourth grades, with plans to expand through eighth grade within five years.