STRUGGLING SCHOOLS: Leaders explain decision to allow K-5 grades back in class full time

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Following a decision by the school board to allow elementary school students to return to the classroom full time, the board and New Hanover County Commissioners held a news conference Wednesday morning.

During it, the school and county leaders says they came to the decision to let elementary students shift to “Plan A” because students are struggling.

NHCS Superintendent Dr. Charles Foust says the district as a whole is struggling hard with hybrid learning.

Currently, all public schools in New Hanover County are under Plan B, a hybrid of in-person and remote learning.

Starting January 11, elementary school students will have the option to return to school five days a week.

Parents not comfortable with this plan will have the option to keep their students remote. However, those students might not be able to retain their same teachers.

For middle or high schooler students, they can choose between hybrid learning or fully remote.

“Children need consistency,” mother Lori Sorensen said. “Changing up mid-year is not going to be a good thing for anyone.” Sorensen has a daughter in kindergarten, and says remote learning works well for her.

“She’s bonded very well from day one with her teacher, so to take that away from her, I don’t think any child psychologist would tell you that would be a good thing.”

Sorensen wants to keep her daughter fully remote next semester, but was upset when she got an email Wednesday morning explaining her daughter may be assigned to a different teacher.

“I know my situation is different from others,” she said. “My question is, why are we changing everything up? I can’t speak for other parents and I’m not going to, but I’m speaking to mine. They’re going to keep remote, but they’re going to lose their teachers. That is my problem.”

School Board Chair Stefanie Adams says she’s confident students will adjust to these changes.

“As a parent, in my son’s classroom this year, we have actually had a changing of principal,” Adams said. “We have lost a teacher. We have gained a teacher, and I will tell you, from my perspective, the children are resilient and the teachers are fantastic.”

Sorensen says she thinks the change will do more harm than good though.

“Children are resilient,” she said. “I understand that. But when they’re learning and they’re already doing so well.”

In November, Foust acknowledging he wasn’t 100% in support of “Plan A.”

“And then I talked with colleagues around the state and other superintendents,” Foust said. “What they shared with me was, ‘Charles, what we’ve experienced is not what’s going on in the community.”

Students can stay full remote in the new year. Foust says he talked to other superintendents about how they made “Plan A” work.

“So for instance, with the transition, he was saying a Kindergarten class or 5th-grade class, they treated them like the bubble,” Foust said. “Everyone pushed into them. So they didn’t travel around the building. An art teacher came to that classroom.”

Right now, Foust reports some schools have more than 100 failing grades, calling it a tough pill to swallow.

“We also have to think about the long term effects and effects of what the pandemic is going to do to us academically,” Foust said.

Other parents want to see their children in school full time.

“Absolutely nothing is working over remote learning,” mother Shannon Dick said. “My son with autism, I don’t believe he’s getting enough services. They’re inadequate. They’re insufficient. They’re trying to address it, but if a child like that slams a computer shut, there’s nothing you can do remotely.”

Dick has three middle schoolers, two with special needs. She says her children with special needs rely on consistency, but are only allowed to go to school in person four days a week.

“I might be helping another child with something,” she said. “With math or anything else, and then a meltdown happens. He scratches his face to the point of bleeding. He threatens his own life. He curls up in a ball on the floor because he’s so frustrated with himself.”

Foust says they’re not allowed to have any middle school or high school students back full time according to state orders.

Dick says she’d like to see her children with special needs attend school on a one-week on, two weeks off basis, like the district initially decided on in the fall.

“It is not doable, sustainable,” she said. “It’s awful to the point of needing many more services for my son with autism.”

Also during the conference, the New Hanover County Health Director Philip Tarte says there have been 146 confirmed COVID-19 cases among children ages 5-10, adding most have recovered and there are only 22 active cases. He says not all of these children are necessarily in the public school system.

“Exposure to COVID-19 is overwhelmingly coming from outside of the school setting,” Tarte said.

The health director says no clusters have been reported within the school district and that North Carolina has seen low transmission in the classroom setting.