Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools will be returning students to the classroom ahead of schedule following new guidance from the state health department and State Board of Education.
Thursday night, CHCCS’ Board of Education voted unanimously to move up its hybrid learning model to March 22. The district initially planned to allow for some in-person learning beginning April 19.
The board voted to return to in-person learning noting current vaccination efforts and positive trends in the county. The current test positivity rate in Orange County is .9 percent. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Centers for Disease Control, recommend a 5 percent positivity rate or less for school reopening.
Under the district’s hybrid learning plan, cohorts of CHCCS students would have the option to attend in-person instruction on Mondays and Tuesdays or Thursdays and Fridays, with Wednesdays used for cleaning each district building.
Earlier on Thursday, the State Board of Education unanimously approved a school reopening resolution, stating that public schools should offer some in-person instruction to students “no later than the end of March.”
CHCCS has been operating in remote learning for nearly all of its students since the coronavirus outbreak reached North Carolina last March. The school district, however, has been preparing for a return to the classroom after new state recommendations earlier in the year.
On January 21, state government officials urged all local Boards of Education consider the return of students to the classroom. This announcement was in consideration of the ABC Science Collaborative’s research that schools can safely open under a hybrid learning model by following strict mitigation strategies.
Following guidance from the state, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools’ Board of Education approved a calendar recommended by district staff on February 4 to begin some in-person learning for students on April 19, near the start of the academic year’s fourth quarter.
That decision concluded a two-month period of consideration to move to Plan B models of instruction amid the coronavirus pandemic – as the board voted to wait for approval in December and January.
On Wednesday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services called on all K-12 public schools to offer in-person instruction “to the fullest extent possible” to the roughly 1.5 million students in the state. Updated guidelines from the NCDHHS encourage schools to offer in-person learning to the highest extent while following health protocol and allowing higher-risk students to opt for remote learning.
Under this new guidance, any K-12 school that opts-in to in-person learning will be given the resources to conduct COVID-19 screening tests. Starting Thursday, all the state’s public schools can begin requesting free COVID-19 antigen tests from DHHS. This is an expansion of a pilot program where 53,000 free tests were given to 17 school districts and 11 charter schools from December through February.
As more North Carolina public schools prepare to return students to the classroom, the NCDHHS reports that at least 50,000 essential workers in a K-12 or childcare setting have gotten a vaccine since Group 3 opened on February 24. 205 CHCCS staff have reported having one or both COVID-19 shots as of Thursday. 458 have received vaccinations through CHCCS over the past two weeks.
Actions from public health officials and education leaders this week encourage school reopening but do not mandate it. Senate Bill 37 has the potential to change that.
Senate Bill 37, which mandates in-person learning options at North Carolina public schools, was passed by both the senate and the house in February. On February 26, Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the bill, stating that it allows middle and high school students to be in school without following NCDHHS and CDC guidelines on social distancing.
On Monday, March 1 the senate lacked the supermajority needed to override Cooper’s veto, however, North Carolina state legislature plans another veto override vote to mandate the state’s K-12 public school districts to reopen if they are not already.
Orange County is now marked as yellow in the NCDHHS’ County Alert system, indicating “significant community spread.” The county had been marked as orange indicating “substantial community spread” since late January.
Lead photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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This is GREAT news! My family is in the CHCCS district and we’ve been fine to wait it out until teachers + staff have been vaccinated. Now that those vaccinations have begun, I need these tiny people to go to school FULL TIME – let’s also do away with hybrid plans, please!