As first reported early Tuesday morning by WBT News, N.C. Governor Roy Cooper announced Tuesday afternoon students will be allowed to learn in class and virtually.
This falls under the Plan B category. Plan A would have allowed for all students to attend full-time, while Plan C required students to be 100% virtual.
However, Cooper is allowing each school district to determine if it would rather do Plan B, Plan C, or both. Each school district in the state will at the very least allow parents to determine for themselves if they’re comfortable sending their kids backs to school. If not, a full-time virtual classroom will be allowed for them.
Sources said the parents of some 18,000 students in Wake County have already signed up for virtual only learning.
CMS is scheduled to approve either Wednesday or Thursday its variation of Plan B.
Sources said the district will break each classroom up into thirds, upon which each third will go to school one week and then be at home for virtual learning two weeks. A main reason it was done this way is in case a student tests positive for COVID-19 and exposes their classmates.
If that were to happen, standard protocol is for a person to be quarantined at home for 14 days. If a positive test were to happen to a student, the 14-day quarantine is already built into their learning schedule.
In terms of school athletics and programs, state sources tell WBT News that it’s expected that all school activities will be delayed indefinitely.
On Monday, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told media in Charlotte that he fully supports children going back to school because it’s more harmful health wise for them to stay at home. He cited emotional development, neglect, abuse and not having enough food to eat as reasons why.
Mecklenburg County Health Director Gibbie Harris supported Dr. Redfield’s statements.
Dr. Redfield also said that studies and statistics show that while it’s rare for children to contract the virus and also to spread it, one out of one million positive cases in children will die. To put things in perspective, there are 1,553,334 K-12 students in N.C. public schools. Last school year, five children in N.C. died due to the flu (1-310,000), and in 2010, 10 died (1-155,000).
There is real concern amongst many school districts that many teachers will refuse to return to the classroom, especially the older ones.
Moreover, there is also concern that many parents will remove their kids from public schools altogether and opt for home schooling.
However, on the other end of the spectrum, many parents have great worries about being able to provide adequate supervision for their children when they’re not in school because they have no choice but to work.