WCPSS approves daily in-person learning for 6th through 12th grades

The Wake County Board of Education approved a plan Monday night to bring thousands of middle and high school students back into classrooms on a daily basis.

The board called a special meeting to discuss the proposal, which was made by the Wake County Public School System.

The vote was 6-3, with Board Members Heather Scott, Monika Johnson-Hostler and Jim Martin voting against it.

Students in 6th through 12th grades will be able to return to daily in-person learning sometime in April.

Virtual academy remains an option for any Wake County student who wants it.

Students at modified calendar and early college schools can return to classrooms under Plan A (minimal social distancing) beginning April 5. Traditional calendar students will come back under Plan A on April 8, and year-round students will come back under Plan A on April 14.

Under Plan B, which requires 6 feet of social distancing, most principals surveyed said they would be unable to bring students back to class for daily in-person instruction.

In opposing the proposal, Martin said 3 feet of social distancing was a classroom’s maximum capacity prior to COVID-19. He didn’t support that from an academic or health perspective, he said.

Shortly before voting in favor of the plan, Board Member Karen Carter noted statistics on the thousands of failing grades students have been earning in the district.

“Some of these numbers are really red flags,” she said. “And I know that is something I myself have taken into great consideration.”

Carter noted special concern for special education, English-language learning or homeless students.

In making the recommendation, the district considered declining COVID-19 infection rates data and concerns for student well-being, Superintendent Cathy Q. Moore told the school board.

As of last Tuesday, feedback from principals had been mixed. Board members expressed both concern for whether principals would have too much of a burden on planning how to reopen and for whether principals would have enough authority to make determinations on reopening based on the realities of their own school.

Johnson-Hostler said then she was additionally worried for teachers who had asked for and been granted permission to work remotely and for the potential disruption to high school seniors’ schedules, right before they plan to graduate.

On Monday, board members continued to ask questions about the potential for students’ schedules and teachers to change.

“My gut tells me this is a little too much that this recommendation is too much at once and it’s so much disruption,” Scott said.

Scott also expressed concern for the safety of school lunch, if more students will be eating and talking, maskless.

“How can you tell a family that their child is going to be safe during lunch?” she asked.

Moore said schools have been allowing students to eat in rooms other than the cafeteria, including classrooms, to reduce crowds.

Students do not need to be silent during lunch, district officials said.

Principals are making many of these decisions, and working with the district on things such as ordering more picnic tables for outdoor eating. Juniors and seniors will be allowed to leave campus for lunch, thereby potentially reducing the number of students eating inside, should they take advantage.

On school buses, the district should be able to maintain distancing among riders by having one student to each seat, said Bob Snidemiller, senior director of transportation for the school district.

Johnson-Hostler, before voting against the district’s proposal for Plan A, said she wished the proposal could have been to allow principals to decide whether Plan A would work for them.

“I truly wish we could have let schools figure this out, instead of a district plan” that is still going to require schools to figure it out,” Johnson-Hostler said.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its guidance of 6 feet or more of social distancing in all cases to only 3 feet in some cases. In counties with high transmission rates, 6 feet is still recommended for 6th through 12th grades. Currently, Wake County and numerous other North Carolina counties have “high” transmission rates, per CDC data. Those rates are trending downward.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has not adopted the new guidance, and its StrongSchoolsNC Tool Kit still requires 6 feet of social distancing. Moore told the board she anticipates a toolkit change soon.

State DHHS guidance helps inform North Carolina Department of Public Instruction guidance, and public schools are required to follow it. The State Board of Education, which also works on that guidance, has called a special meeting for Thursday, in which further discussion of school reopening is on the agenda.

Families must choose virtual or in-person learning by April 1. The district confirmed that date after a board member noted that some families think they must decide by March 24 — Wednesday.

Those who choose in-person learning must still follow other health protocols, such as wearing face masks and doing health screenings.

Students who request a change in learning, either from fully virtual to in-person or in-person to fully virtual, will be accommodated no later than April 19.

The plan also moves up a teacher and staff workday to April to prepare for Plan A, except at year-round single-track schools and Wake STEM Early College. Workdays will be moved from May 13 to April 7 for traditional calendar schools, June 15 to April 1 for modified calendar schools and May 13 to April 1 for leadership academics, college and career academies, Knightdale High School and Wake Early College of Health & Science.

The approved plan changes the district’s instruction protocol to Plan A (minimal social distancing) for 6th through 12th grades – the only ones not operating under Plan A in the district.

The district is examining he logistics of the plan, including the impact on teachers and schedules. As a part of that, officials are looking at how many teachers with permission to work virtually only will have to come back under Plan A and whether students will end up with new teachers because of scheduling changes.

Many students likely will have a schedule change or a new teacher for the fourth quarter, whether attending virtually or in-person. How many will have a change depends on how many students opt to change their mode of learning.

Students still have the option to do virtual-only learning, but they will no longer have the option of Plan B (6 feet of social distancing) or rotating cohort learning.

The district began offering daily in-person learning with minimal social distancing for 4th and 5th grades March 15. Pre-kindergarten through 3rd grades have had that option since mid-February.

The move to Plan A comes after Gov. Roy Cooper and lawmakers reached a deal earlier this month to require all traditional publics schools — not including charter schools — offer at least Plan A or Plan B (6 feet of social distancing) — for 6th through 12th grade students. It also requires districts to offer Plan A for students with individualized education plans (IEPs) and 504 plans. The agreement turned into a law passed days later.

School districts that elect for Plan A must participate in the Duke University ABC Science Collaborative research initiative. The Collaborative has not yet studied transmission in schools under reduced social distancing.

LAST WEEK:

The Board of Education also heard a presentation on changing the start times for students — namely, starting high school later.

Research shows teenagers’ natural sleep cycle is later than younger students and adults.

The school district plans to solicit feedback across the community, consult with other school districts that have changed start times and evaluate the full extent of potential changes’ impact on personnel, students and the community.

Moore, citing research showing that teenagers perform better when they start school later, called the effort “overdue.”

Other districts that have moved back start times for high schools include Durham and Winston-Salem/Forsyth in North Carolina and others in Virginia and Maryland.

Currently, elementary, middle and high schools have different start times.

The district outlined three options for the board:

The district won’t propose a change for any schools years until the 2022-23 school year.

The school also approved creating three new caps for school next year, while maintaining all current caps.

The new enrollment limits are for Northwoods Elementary School, Apex Friendship Middle School an Apex Friendship High School. The caps take place now and continue next year.

The school district determined the caps were necessary because of projected growth, capacities and other feedback. All schools are currently above capacity.

The overflow schools would be Cary Elementary for Northwoods, Apex Middle for Apex Friendship and Apex High for Apex Friendship High.

The school district originally proposed four new caps at a board work session earlier this month — the fourth being for Zebulon Elementary School — but came back with a revision, approved without opposition Tuesday night.

The cap for Northwoods will limit enrollment to 572 students next year. Current enrollment is 648 students.

For Apex Friendship Middle, the cap will be 1,400 students, which is still above current enrollment for the year (1,287 students).

For Apex Friendship High, the cap will be 2,700 students, less than the current enrollment of 2,733 students.