North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper announced the state’s COVID-19 trends indicate it is safe for elementary schools to reopen to full capacity for in-person learning.
The governor made the announcement on Thursday, with state health officials citing improvements and stabilization in important coronavirus metrics. Cooper said school districts will have the option to choose whether to transition to the Plan A category of learning, which means all elementary students can return to classrooms. Middle school and high school students will remain in either Plan B or Plan C learning models, which are hybrid learning and exclusively remote learning, respectively.
“Of all the interruptions COVID-19 has created, education is the most challenging to address,” said Cooper. “The number-one opening priority during this pandemic has been our schools. Our continuing progress in fighting the spread of this virus is allowing us to do a little more.”
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said these improvements in trends are from North Carolina residents following mask requirements and physically distancing. Such health guidelines will continue to be required when people are at school, especially the mask requirement. In addition, the same cleaning requirements for schools operating under Plan B models must still be implemented.
But Cohen said developing science and emerging data indicate younger children are better positioned to return than others. She said recent studies show kids are less likely to experience disease or spread the coronavirus to others. The secretary also said early returns of viral spread during this school year have been encouraging.
“Since school started about a month ago,” said Cohen, “we’ve seen ten school clusters across the state, involving a total of 16 students and 46 staff members. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen the case numbers for school-age children decline, a trend that is particularly strong among our younger, elementary school children.
“And there don’t appear to be differences in community spread of the virus in districts where they’re operating in a hybrid in-person model versus an all-remote learning model,” the secretary added. “That’s good news.”
Cooper said, however, the state government “will not hesitate” to re-implement restrictions on full in-person learning if the state sees a resurgence of positive COVID-19 cases this winter or next spring.
On Wednesday, North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and other top Republican officials pushed for a move to Plan A. Forest, who is facing off against Cooper in the ongoing gubernatorial election, said he would immediately reopen all K-12 public schools without requiring students or teachers to wear masks.
When asked at Thursday’s press conferences if these comments helped lead to these changes, Cooper responded by saying returning children to classrooms have always been a top priority for when the state’s coronavirus trends improve.
“It’s irresponsible to say we’re going to say we’re going to fill up our classrooms now with no safety measures and with no masks,” the governor added. “The science is clear on masks: they work to slow the spread of the virus. When elected leaders and people in important policy positions discourage the use of masks, that becomes part of the problem because what you do is increase community spread. And therefore, you make it harder for our children to get safely into school, you make it harder for us to ease restrictions and get our economy going at full speed again.”
In Orange County, both the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district and the Orange County Schools district have been operating under a Plan C model since the school year began in August.
Cooper said the earliest schools will be able to start under Plan A will be October 5, which allows districts time to prepare.
A full release with details on the change can be found on the governor’s office’s website.
Photo via North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
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