NC schools start Monday in ‘uncharted territory.’ What to expect and what’s uncertain.
North Carolina’s public schools will reopen Monday, amid concerns about the quality of education that the state’s 1.5 million students will get during the coronavirus pandemic.
More than two-thirds of the state’s K-12 students are beginning the school year with only online classes in a virtual environment that’s still unfamiliar to many of their teachers. And few of the students who will receive in-person instruction will get it on a daily basis because of social distancing requirements designed to reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19.
“We are going to get back to learning this month,” State Superintendent Mark Johnson said at this month’s State Board of Education meeting. “These are challenging and frustrating times for everyone, and about the only thing we can all agree on is no one is going to be happy with how school is starting this year.”
Educators say they’re going to do the best they can to provide students with a good education over the next 10 months. But they readily admit that this school year is going to be an experience unlike any that’s ever been seen.
“Can we anticipate every right thing and wrong thing that will happen?” Kim Short, principal of the new South Lakes Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina, said in an interview. “If I could, I’d be a fortune teller and not an educator. As educators, we have to plan far enough ahead and be ready to change.”
The new school year is beginning Monday five months after Gov. Roy Cooper first ordered school buildings closed for face-to-face classes to try to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Cooper is allowing public schools to reopen if they follow new requirements such as daily temperature checks and making everyone wear face coverings. Schools also have to meet social distancing requirements that have reduced how many students can be on campus and on school buses.
Bad memories of spring online classes
The majority of school districts have opted to open with only remote instruction because of concerns that it’s not safe to resume in-person classes.
What’s still on the mind of many parents is the remote learning that schools used to finish out last school year.
“We saw how virtual worked last semester,” Shawn Mayer, the parent of a senior at Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, said in an interview. “In my opinion, it was a disaster. Hopefully they’ve gotten things more together, but we really haven’t heard much.”
Adam Zerda, a Cary parent of two students, said the way last school year ended has left him nervous about how this school year will go.
“Last spring, a lot of people were grading on a curve with how Wake County responded,” Zerda said in an interview. “The pandemic was not anything anybody planned for, so to expect the school system to have a fully formed method for virtual instruction was difficult to expect.
“That being said, we’ve had six months to prepare for this. I am hoping our educators and our teachers will come into this better prepared.”
Short, the principal, said schools didn’t have much time to prepare last spring and were also dealing with the expectation from the state not to teach new material. She said schools have had time to prepare for the new school year, including developing a plan to catch students up on material they missed in the spring.
“We’re going to have to figure out ways to make kids learn,” Short said. “Can they go online and learn? Absolutely. We figured out how to do it in-person, so we should be able to figure it out online.”
Special-ed and low-income families worried
But not all students can succeed in an online environment, according to Letha Muhammad, director of the Raleigh-based Education Justice Alliance.
Muhammad said it will be particularly hard on special-needs students and families of low-income students who have less access to resources to provide childcare and tutoring. She said the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need for ensuring resources are equitably distributed to families.
“There is a real danger for Black and brown lower-income students to be in an even worse place academically, socially and emotionally as a result of this,” Muhammad said in an interview.
School districts have been working with community groups to arrange childcare options and to distribute computers and Wi-Fi hotspots for families who say they need them. Wake County is planning to distribute 40,000 computers, but Muhammad said some Latinx families that her group works with didn’t realize that the devices were available.
The state has created a hotline where families who are in need of child care for children up to age 12 can call 1-888-600-1685 to be connected directly to options in their community.
Families of special-needs students have been especially vocal in arguing that their children aren’t being well-served in an online environment. Erin Wall says her 8-year-old son at Penny Road Elementary School in Cary hasn’t gotten speech therapy and occupational therapy services since the spring.
“We know that there was regression back in March when we had to stay home,” Wall said. “Now we’re starting the school year off with no clear plan or guidance.”
Teachers adapting to online environment
The remote learning environment is increasing pressure on teachers who are far more used to teaching students in a face-to-face setting.
“This is definitely new, uncharted territory,” Amy Craddock, a fourth-grade teacher at Richland Creek Elementary School in Wake Forest, said in an interview. “We’re a little stressed. It’s all new stuff. We’re trying to figure out how to navigate and connect with our students virtually.”
Echoing what’s being said by schools across the state, Craddock said students and parents need to expect that the online classes will be different than what was done in the spring. New material will be taught and grades will be given.
“The expectations are a lot more,” Craddock said. “Since it was so sudden in March we were very lenient and giving people the benefit of the doubt. (Now) there’s a set schedule they’re required to attend and attendance will be taken.”
Bill Ferriter, an eighth-grade science teacher at Salem Middle School in Apex, said teachers will have to find new ways to build supportive, meaningful relationships with their students in a virtual environment. He said teachers also need to realize that they’ll have less face-to-face time with students now, so they’ve got to use that limited time more effectively.
“Good teaching is good teaching wherever you do it,” Ferriter, a former Wake County Teacher of the Year, said in an interview. “But the practices I use in a face-to-face environment, I’ve got to figure out how to adapt to a virtual environment.”
Teachers are ready to rise up and meet the challenges that this new school year will bring, Ferriter said.
“We can’t just wash our hands and say we can’t do anything about it because that choice means allowing a student to fall further behind in their education,” Ferriter said. “Approaching this year with optimism and hope will help our kids be successful.”
Dealing with COVID cases at schools
Another uncertainty that parents face this year is the potential that their children’s schedules could shift multiple times depending on the COVID-19 trends. Schools could move between online-only classes, a mix of online and in-person classes and full in-person instruction during the school year.
For schools that are bringing students back on campus, families face the prospect of COVID-19 outbreaks. Some private schools that have already opened for in-person instruction have reported individual COVID-19 cases that are causing them to suspend face-to-face classes and/or quarantine some students and teachers.
The state Department of Health and Human Services will post twice a week online (covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/outbreaks-and-clusters) about ongoing clusters at schools. But families may not be told if there’s a COVID-19 case at their school if there are less than five cases and if they’re not in the class with the person who tested positive.
DHHS says it would likely take multiple positive cases at a school before it’s closed.
Many families signed up for virtual programs as a way to avoid dealing with in-person classes or to ensure scheduling stability. Juliette Grimmett, a Raleigh parent of two children who enrolled in Wake County’s Virtual Academy, said she’s putting her trust in the teachers and the district.
“I recognize everybody has different challenges,” Grimmett said in an interview. “I have a really hard time with people slamming the school system, slamming the teachers and slamming online. None of us have dealt with a pandemic, and everyone is trying their best.”
Heather Shepherd didn’t sign up for Wake’s Virtual Academy because she had hoped her two children would begin at Apex High School and Salem Middle School with face-to-face classes. Shepherd doesn’t expect her kids to be on campus for a while.
“We want everyone to be safe, but also we want it to be a quality year for their education,” Shepherd said in an interview. “We’re trying to stay hopeful with that. We’re all in the same boat and trying to adapt.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 11:55 AM with the headline "NC schools start Monday in ‘uncharted territory.’ What to expect and what’s uncertain.."
