School board OKs combo plan of at-home, face-to-face learning

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), Sampson County’s Board of Education approved a challenging weekly plan to start next school year, with students in classrooms for only two days and learning three days away from the building.

During Thursday’s meeting, the board unanimously approved a moderate social distancing schedule to limit the amount of students in a school at one time, based on recommendations from district officials and guidance from state officials. Known as Plan B, administrators are being asked to have 50 percent or less students than normal in a building at one time for the Re-entry and Remote Learning Plan. Everyone is required to stay 6 feet away from others in buildings and transportation vehicles.

Dr. Linda Jewell Carr, assistant superintendent of Instructional Services for Sampson County Schools, made a presentation to the board that includes one group of students attending school Monday and Tuesday for face-to-face instruction and the other half would go Thursday and Friday. When the students are not in school, they will be learning remotely through online resources, with paper packets, or WiFi hotspots.

“All five days would count as attendance,” Carr said. “All five days would count for grading. That’s an importance piece of Plan B.”

Wednesday is set as a day for teachers to plan, grade work and provide feedback to students. Previously scheduled workdays on the school calendar will be switched to Wednesday. During the week, teachers are being asked to produce videos for the remote learning.

“The beauty of the videos are that they can replay them and revisit them if they need to go back over the materials while they are at home,” she said. “Our teachers are going to have a challenging year. Our teachers are going to be preparing every lesson that they do for remote learning and face-to-face learning.”

Carr said the district was asked to send the plan to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI). They were directed to include Plan A (minimal social distancing) and Plan C (remote learning only if COVID-19 gets worse). Plan A would have all the required health and safety measures in place, through the work of district officials. According to NC DPI’s “Lighting Our Way Forward” reopening decision, Plan A would have the least restrictions for schools reopening and would be implemented if COVID-19 metrics continue to get better.

“If we have the opportunity to be in Plan A at the beginning, the middle, or wherever we are during the year, all of those health and safety guidelines would be met,” Carr said. “But that would include a minimal social distancing in the schools. There’s lots of signage, we’re doing temperature checks, and a lot of precautionary measures to make sure that our schools are safe for our staff and students. Plan A was a given, we knew we just had to meet those measures.

Carr said the approved Plan B is where every things gets really complicated.

“The truth is that there’s no good scenario for Plan B,” she said about starting with five proposals during meetings with stakeholders, district’s executive team, school officials, parents and students.

For Plan B, the five was scaled down to three ideas. The other two ideas shared during a previous work session included three days of remote learning and one group coming to school on Monday and Thursday and the other group attending school Tuesday and Friday. A third idea was to have a four-day week with face-to-face instruction held every other week.

“We did have support on all of them,” Carr said. “We just want to be the best and most productive that we can be. I like the guidance from the state that every day counts for attendance and every day counts for a grading, and that our expectation is that we’re going to get through our standard course of study and our pacing. Just because we’re going through a pandemic we’re not taking our foot off the gas.”

Carr said the district will spread awareness about the approved Plan B plan through a major social media push to prepare for next year, along with surveys related to transportation and other matters to help administrators with schedules for families.

“We will make sure all siblings are in the same group,” Carr said about those students going to school for the back-to-back instructional days. “We’re also going to be reaching out homes and making sure we’re going to get that survey because it will include a place for each child’s name, so we know that we need to group these children together. That will help us as we’re doing scheduling.”

Before the vote, board member Sonya Powell and other board members were concerned about parents and their job schedules.

“I see this nightmare of working parents trying to figure out what they’re going to do with their kids for three days a week versus a whole week,” Powell said. “I just don’t see how this is going to work.”

For working schedules, Carr emphasized that it’s important for parents and schools to communicate to make sure their children are on the same schedule. One example was having older high school siblings to help out with their younger brothers and sisters.

“I know no one likes it and it is an issue dealing with childcare, but it’s one we’re going to have to address,” she said. “The sooner we can start communicating with our families, the better off we’re going to be.”

N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to give more guidance in July. Carr said decisions will probably be related to Plan B or C when it comes to restrictions and safety. Board Chair Kim Schmidlin said the district will work with health officials on school matters as well.