Approval expected for new policy around remote learning days at Wake schools

The Wake County Board of Education has moved a new policy on attendance and the calling of remote learning days toward a final vote later this month.

The policy was approved on a first reading Tuesday night, with the expectation that it will be approved after second and third readings at the June 15 meeting.

The attendance policy was one of four that was moved for a June 15 vote, including a policy that allows parents to volunteer at schools virtually, so long as they pass the requirements and background checks as in-person volunteers.

All policies passed through unanimously, except for the attendance policy, which passed on a vote of 7-2.

The proposed attendance policy governs Virtual Academy attendance intervention and grants the superintendent the authority to call remote learning days for emergencies.

Board Member Karen Carter opposed the policy after expressing concern that it wasn’t explicit enough that remote learning days would not replace make up days, if schools ever had to close for an emergency. Board Member Roxie Cash also voted against moving the policy forward.

Families typically look at makeup days built into the school calendar, if school ever has to be canceled, Carter said.

“My concern is that the remote learning would be used instead of the workdays on the calendar,” Carter said.

Superintendent Cathy Q. Moore said the lack of clarity is because the district will have to figure out how much work can be done asynchronously versus synchronously. She added that she called a remote learning day in May because of the gas shortage, only because she had no days left in the school year for a makeup day, without pushing back the last day of school.

The district will have to come up with a policy to recommend to the board on using remote learning days in the future, if needed, Moore said.

“I do not anticipate using any remote learning days for makeup without the board first hearing about that,” Moore said.

The attendance policy also outlines how school officials would intervene with Virtual Academy students who have excessive absences and clarifies that schools determine whether an absence is excused and not doctors’ notes.

Current policy, which is unchanged in the new draft, counts 20 absences as excessive, regardless of whether they are excused.

The proposed policy would add a provision for Virtual Academy students that says school-based attendance teams, which work on attendance interventions with students’ parents or guardians, can evaluate what setting — virtually or in-person — the students with excessive absences would perform best in. The teams would make the recommendations to principals.

Several board members were also concerned about the possibility that the policy, as written, would punish students whose parents took them out of school early because a sibling had to be taken out of school. District officials said they would modify the language to prevent that.

Parents again voice mask opposition

Tuesday’s meeting once again featured numerous public comments from Wake County parents demanding that their child be allowed to not wear a mask, if adults no longer have to.

North Carolina still requires masks in traditional public schools for anyone older than 5 years old to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Only people 12 and older can receive a COVID-19 vaccine, leaving children more vulnerable to contracting the virus.

But on Tuesday, parents noted that young children don’t suffer from COVID-19 to the severity that adults do.

“If you do not lift the mask mandate, children will suffer needlessly,” said Amy Marshall, a Wake County parent and teacher and the founder and director the Carolina Teachers Alliance.

The masks instill fear in children and can make breathing uncomfortable, parents said.

A third girl told the board she shouldn’t have to wear a mask if board members don’t wear them.

“It’s hard to breathe and it’s hard to hear my teacher,“ she told the board. “Please stop pushing masks on us.”

Parents said the continued face mask requirement for children shows that the district continues to be behind the norm elsewhere, parents said, after the district required most students to learn only virtually for most of the year.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services sets the safety rules for traditional public schools. The latest iteration of the department’s rule, the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit, continue to require children older than 5 years old to wear masks when indoors at school.

A state law passed last year requires traditional public school districts to follow that tool kit; it does not apply to public charter schools, but state Department of Public Instruction and State Board of Education guidance that does apply to charter schools mirrors the tool kit.

Last week, the Wake County district announced new guidance for its schools that said adults would not need to wear a face mask if they were not in the presence of children.

New middle school named

A new middle school in the Research Triangle Park has a name: Parkside Middle School.

The Wake County Board of Education approved the new name Tuesday after the board’s facilities committee recommended it last month.

The other choices considered were Little Drive Middle School and research Triangle Park Middle School.

The district recommended Parkside to the board because it’s next to the existing Parkside Elementary School, and the matching names would help people know where it is.

Fall exam calendar change abandoned

The Wake County Board of Education scratched hopes to change the fall calendar for the 2022-23 school year in a way that would have allowed high school students to take their end-of-course exams for the fall semester prior to winter break. Currently, students take those exams after returning from winter break, as the fall semester continues in the first weeks of the new year.

But district officials told the board Tuesday, during a work session, that moving the calendar up would mean teachers would have no workdays, which are used for professional development and planning.

The district can’t move up the beginning of the fall term because of a state law saying the school year cannot start before the Monday closest to Aug. 26. During the 2022-23 school year, that Monday would be Aug. 29.

The district looked at other school districts that have moved up fall exams but didn’t come away with a. Solution, said Tamani Anderson Powell, Wake County’s magnet school director, who also works on the calendars.

In Johnston County, teachers voted to give up their fall workdays, Anderson Powell said. But even then, the fall and spring semesters remained uneven by comparison, with the fall semester only 80 days, compared to the 97-day spring semester.

Anderson Powell made the presentation Tuesday after board members asked how the district could change its calendar to move up fall exams.

“Until the calendar law changes and we’re able to adjust that beginning day, it really makes it difficult,” Anderson Powell said. “Perhaps in another year when it’s not so tight, we can take a look at it again.”