What will an attendance policy look like during COVID? Wake leaders meeting to discuss
Wake County leaders met Tuesday afternoon to discuss how to improve virtual learning for students across the district.
No Wake County student will be back in the classroom until at least Oct. 22, and about half of the district's students will learn from home the entire semester.
Although online classes began Monday, district leaders say teachers are flexible as families work to understand the virtual learning system and access the proper technology.
As Wake County Schools continues distributing laptops and hotspots to students, school board chairman Keith Sutton said those who are connected, have had success logging in for the first two days of classes.
“Things to seem to have gone relative smoothly and no problems, so we’re just pleased to be back," said Sutton.
WCPSS is still in the process of handing out laptops and devices to thousands of students who need them.
Tuesday, the board voted to approve a bid with Lenovo for nearly $24 million to purchase 85,000 Lenova 300e Chromebooks.
On Monday, WCPSS Chief Technology Officer Marlo Gaddis said "our hope is to provide a device to every student by the beginning of next school year.
The district also launched a Guides to Technology website and Helpdesk.
The board also approved an attendance police where a student will be marked absent if they fail to login for class and don't contact their teacher.
About 25 districts across North Carolina had issues logging onto NCEDcloud, the state's online learning system, Monday during the first hours of the school year. Wake County was not affected.
In an interview with WRAL News on Tuesday, board chair Keith Sutton said things went relatively smoothly.
"We’re pleased to be back and back in the swing," he said. "We did not run into tech difficulties other in the states ran into, most parents and students were able to get on without any tech glitches and to our knowledge things ran smoothly."
Sutton said he would give the district an "A-" grade for the way the first day of school was handled.
As for getting back into the classroom this year, Wake County will enter into a new partnership with a medical team from Duke University.
The medical team will track COVID-19 cases, analyze the data and guide the school board’s reopening decisions.
