New Hanover School Board holds final meeting before Plan B

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — New Hanover County Schools are getting ready to welcome students back to the classroom in less than a week and on Tuesday the Board of Education had one last discussion about reopening procedures.

“Schools are ready and they’ll be ready to welcome students on Monday morning,” said Assistant Superintendent of Operations Eddie Anderson.

Anderson says the district has been hard at work for months preparing school buildings to reopen safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Visual signs and reminders, floor markings, plexiglass partition at the reception, hand sanitizer in the classrooms,” he said.

However not everyone is excited for the Plan B reopening, which is a hybrid of in-person and remote learning. At the final school board meeting before students go back to the classroom, a group of current and former teachers and parents protested outside with concerns about safety.

“The teachers are going to be asked to clean the classrooms in between classes as the class change is happening and the school is providing the chemicals, but what I’ve been told by some teachers is that they’re getting chemicals in unlabeled spray bottles,” said retired teacher Leslie Posey.

Anderson says all chemicals used in schools have been approved by the New Hanover County Health Department.

“There has been a lot of things floating around on social media that are not correct,” he said. I can assure you that any product that we’re using in our schools, the safety data sheets are available online and they’re also available in a hard copy in the school.”

He says the district is also providing gloves and offering alternative cleaning products to teachers with concerns.

Posey also has concerns about the time frame for teachers to clean between classes.

“The last school I taught at, we had three minutes between classes, which you really can’t clean adequately a classroom in three minutes,” she said.

Anderson also responded to this saying some schools have extended the time period between classes, but he believes teachers have enough time and hasn’t heard concerns at schools he’s visited.

Representatives from the county health department were also present at the meeting to give an update on COVID-19 in New Hanover County. They said there was no new data suggesting the district should remain under Plan C remote-only learning.

When Plan B begins Monday, students will be split in A and B groups. The A group will attend school Monday and Tuesday and be remote Wednesday through Friday. Group B will be remote Monday through Wednesday and attend school Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is a cleaning day and will be remote for all students.

The Board of Education also discussed ongoing efforts to eventually transition to Plan A for elementary schools, which Governor Cooper approved last month. This would allow full-time in person instruction for grades K-5.

The full meeting video should be posted to NHCS Youtube channel Wednesday or Thursday.