Wake County will increase in-person classes for students sooner than expected

Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore says the school system will increase the amount of in-person instruction that students will receive in the coming weeks.

Moore said Tuesday that she will recommend moving to daily in-person classes for students in fourth and fifth grades who are not in the Virtual Academy. The change could begin as soon as March 15 and would require a vote at an upcoming specially called school board meeting.

Moore said that staff also will present a plan March 16 for increasing how often middle school and high school students will get in-person classes. She said it won’t be daily in-person classes because of state social distancing rules, but will be more than currently allowed.

Currently, only PreK-3 students and special-education students in regional programs are getting daily in-person classes. Other students are attending on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online classes.

Moore on Tuesday cited factors such as Gov. Roy Cooper’s recent request that school districts increase in-person schooling, improvement in the COVID-19 numbers and how more employees are getting vaccinated.

A bill forcing school districts to offer in-person instruction to all students and daily in-person classes to all special-education students was vetoed by Cooper amid concerns it would not lead to safe school reopening. The Senate fell one vote short on Monday of overriding the veto.

Cooper would have to ease rules that require 6 feet of social distancing at middle schools and high schools before Wake would bring those grade levels back for daily in-person classes.

Thousands of teachers vaccinated

Some of the reason for the optimism Tuesday came from how much faster than expected vaccinations have gone for school employees.

Cooper opened up statewide vaccination eligibility on Feb. 24 to PreK-12 school workers and childcare workers. By the end of this week, the district expects 5,640 first doses to be given to school employees.

Bianca Lanier, a third grade teacher at Harris Creek Elementary, watches as Sheila Hardesty, RN, puts on a bandage after Lanier received her COVID-19 vaccine during a mass COVID-19 vaccine event at Wake County Commons Building in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, February 24, 2021. Wednesday was the first day preK-12 public, private and charter schools, as well as childcare workers, became eligible to begin getting shots.

Wake County estimated that it has vaccinated a third of all qualifying educators after only six days, Matt Calabria, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, tweeted Monday.

“It is not unreasonable to think or expect that somewhere in the next month or so that we really could be having all our employees here in the system vaccinated — at least those who want it,” school board Chairman Keith Sutton said Tuesday.

“Just a week or two ago that sounded impossible, but now it’s very realistic that all employees could be vaccinated in 30-45 days or so.”

Help for home-school kindergartners

As part of the planning for this fall, Wake is dealing for the potential return of families who opted to home-school their children during the pandemic.

Wake saw a drop in enrollment this school year, particularly in kindergarten. At the same time, there’s been a statewide surge in home-school enrollment.

Children who are home-schooled in kindergarten who then enroll in Wake County are normally placed in kindergarten before they can request to attend first grade. But for the 2021-22 school year, Wake says it will let those home-schooled kindergarten students go into first grade without having to request “whole grade advancement.”

School board members said the news will reassure families who plan to send their children to the district this fall.