NC schools will reopen in August, with restrictions. Here’s the plan from Gov. Cooper.
Updated July 18
North Carolina public school students will return to school in August, Gov. Roy Cooper announced Tuesday, but it will be in a world where many children only attend in-person classes every other day or every other week.
Cooper announced that K-12 public schools will reopen under a “moderate social distancing” plan that limits how many people can be on campus, forcing many students to get a mix of in-person and remote instruction. The reopening plan requires daily temperature and health screening checks, maintaining 6 feet of social distancing and face coverings to be worn by all school employees and students.
“We know that school will look a lot different this year,” Cooper said at a news briefing Tuesday. “They have to in order to be safe and effective. The public health experts and the school leaders developed these safety rules to protect our students and teachers and their families.”
Most students are scheduled to return to school on Aug. 17 — five months since Cooper ordered schools closed to try to slow the spread of COVID-19, the virus caused by the coronavirus. Students closed out last school year learning from home, which drew complaints from many families about the educational quality.
School leaders have said they’ll do a better job of providing remote instruction this fall. For instance, Wake County says students will get five to six hours a day of instruction this fall, even on days when they’re learning remotely.
Cooper said school districts can reopen with remote-only instruction if they determine that it’s best for students, parents and teachers in that area. He warned that the state may switch to requiring all schools to use online-only instruction if COVID-19 cases spike and they can’t safely reopen under the new health protocols.
Health risks of not reopening schools
Cooper has said he would make his decision based on data and science. New statewide figures released Tuesday show new records set for COVID-19 hospitalizations and single-day death totals.
But Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday that the available scientific evidence indicates that children are less likely to be infected with COVID-19 and are less likely to spread it to others.
“Schools are a lower transmission setting and have not seemed to play a major role in spread of COVID-19,” Cohen said. “We weighed these factors against the conclusive evidence that school is critical to a child’s education, health, emotional and social well-being, and that missing school is actually harmful to children.”
Guidance given by the American Academy of Pediatrics that “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.”
But the group also says “schools in areas with high levels of COVID-19 community spread should not be compelled to reopen against the judgment of local experts.”
Schools try to make Plan B work
Cooper had previously directed schools to develop three reopening plans. Plan A has “minimal distancing” where everyone is allowed back in school. Plan C is remote-only instruction.
Cooper picked Plan B, which has “moderate social distancing.” But he said schools can choose Plan C. Cooper isn’t allowing schools to use Plan A.
At least 13 school district are using Plan C as a result of Cooper’s decision. It’s uncertain how many of the state’s 1.5 million K-12 public school students will actually be back for in-person instruction in August.
The General Assembly passed a law requiring school districts to open with in-person instruction for the first week of school. Cooper said the state Department of Justice says he has the authority to allow schools to reopen on Plan C.
Cooper eased back on the reopening rules under Plan B. Previously schools were limited to 50% capacity. But now he says schools must set capacity limits “necessary to ensure 6 feet distance can be maintained when students/staff will be stationary “
But schools are still limited by rules that restrict them to one child per seat on a bus.
Wake County plans to split students into a rotation of one week of in-person classes followed by two weeks of remote instruction. But Wake is now reconsidering its decision and may go with Plan C.
Districts that expect to use rotating schedules are working with community groups to find childcare options. Wake plans to offer childcare at schools to help families of school employees.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro planned to open school year having students go to school two days a week. But the school board voted to instead have all students go to online classes for the first nine weeks.
To help with childcare, Durham Public Schools planned to have elementary and middle school students go to school every day. But that would require high school students to continue taking all their classes online.
Amid the COVID-19 concerns, the Durham school board voted to delay having face-to-face classes for the first nine weeks of the school year.
The new statewide plan could increase interest in online-only programs from families who don’t feel comfortable returning to school yet or who don’t want to deal with the rotating schedules.
Wake County has already had 26,000 applications, around 16% of its enrollment, for the district’s new Virtual Academy since registration opened Friday. The application period runs to July 20.
There also has been a surge of interest in North Carolina families to home-school their children for the new school year.
Face coverings required
Cooper said the state will provide all schools with at least five reusable cloth face coverings for every student and school employee. He said they hope to provide more if they can get the funding.
Cooper urged businesses to donate face coverings to help schools.
Face coverings are meant to reduce the possibility of the wearer spreading the illness to other people. Students are required to wear them on the bus and when they may be within 6 ft. of another person.
Initially, DHHS was only recommending the wearing of face coverings in schools. They later changed the guidelines to require it for school employees and older students while leaving it recommended for elementary students.
But the new guidelines will require all students to wear face coverings.
“The studies have shown overwhelmingly that face coverings reduce disease transmission,” Cooper said.
Cohen said that if a student tests positive that they will do contact tracing to notify the people who were most in contact with the child. She said that it would not automatically lead to a school being closed.
Parents, teachers skeptical about returning
It’s a potential no-win situation for Cooper and school districts on how to reopen.
None of the three reopening options drew majority support in an Elon University poll done in June in partnership with The News & Observer, Charlotte Observer and Herald-Sun.
Cooper was originally going to announce a decision on July 1 but postponed it to get more buy-in from teachers. Cooper urged local school leaders to talk with school employees as they work on how to safely reopen.
The North Carolina Association of Educators is urging people to sign a “NC Public School Workers Bill of Rights” that says school employees must have a say in reopening and state lawmakers must provide more money for schools.
“The careful approach Governor Cooper has taken in all of his re-opening decisions has been deeply appreciated, and while we understand that this was a difficult choice, we must make the safety of our educators and students the first priority,” Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, educators and parents have been presented with a false dichotomy: the public schools we love, or our safety. We can have both. In order to safely re-open all schools in a way that will protect the health of both students and educators, a significant amount of resources is required.”
Partisan fighting over school reopening
The decision on how to reopen schools in North Carolina and nationally has taken on a partisan tone.
President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from states that don’t reopen schools for full-time, in-person instruction.
“We don’t respond to those kind of threats,” Cooper said. “We’re making decisions on the health and safety of our students, our teachers and our families, and the best way to get them a quality education.”
At the state level, Republican legislative leaders Sen. Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore have said they support the president’s call for a return to full, in-person instruction. They’ve criticized Cooper, a Democrat, for delaying his reopening decision and not giving parents an option for full, in-person instruction.
“The Governor’s plan makes worse the very inequities a public school system is supposed to resolve,” Berger said in a statement Tuesday. “Students whose parents do not have the time or resources to supplement ‘virtual’ schooling will fall even further behind simply because of the condition of their birth. That’s an unspeakable travesty.
“And parents who do not have the privilege of working from home can’t take off every other day from work. What are they supposed to do?”
Moore argued that the reopening plan “exacerbates the administration’s economic and public health failures while adding even more uncertainty for struggling families in North Carolina.”
“Returning students to the classroom should be our top priority, but instead North Carolinians are experiencing the devastating impacts of Governor Cooper’s one-size-fits-all economic closures and policies that hinder broad recovery without protecting the vulnerable,” Moore said in a statement Tuesday.
State Superintendent Mark Johnson, a Republican, said he’s glad that the governor eased up on the 50% capacity rule for schools. But he said school districts should have gotten more flexibility to set their own reopening plans.
“Local school leaders, with the guidance of state health leaders and with input from their educators and parents, should determine the capacities of their districts to adapt safety protocols to make in-person learning safe and feasible, as the medical professionals, superintendents, and other education stakeholders suggest,” Johnson said in a statement.
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 3:03 PM with the headline "NC schools will reopen in August, with restrictions. Here’s the plan from Gov. Cooper.."
