CMS asks state to approve emergency worker pay, waive testing requirements

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders are asking state officials to waive instructional time requirements and end-of-year-testing. The district is also asking for the authority to grant emergency leave pay to all employees who can’t work remotely.

In a letter to state legislators, the state board and the Department of Public Instruction on Friday, Superintendent Earnest Winston and board chair Elyse Dashew said they are asking for flexibility from state regulations and requirements to best respond to the coronavirus’s impact on the district.

“We are requesting some unprecedented changes for these unprecedented times,” the letter said.

Besides the waivers and pay for those who can’t work from home, the district also requested the ability to give emergency leave pay to all employees who become sick from COVID-19 or who have to care for a dependent due to the illness.

Under Cooper’s executive order, all schools in North Carolina are closed to students through March 30. But during a Thursday press conference, he said that people should expect the closures to last longer than the original date on the order.

“We’re going to be out of schools for a while,” Cooper said. “The order was until March 30th but I think people know that with community spread now coming and this crisis increasing that we will likely be out of school for a longer period of time.”

The request for emergency leave pay authority, if granted, would be a likely relief to the district’s many hourly employees. Their roles, such as teacher’s aides, custodians and bus drivers, cannot be done while schools are closed, raising questions of whether they will lose their paychecks during an extended closure. So far, that decision has been left up to individual school districts.

CMS’s request would allow employees to continue being paid regardless of their ability to work remotely.

“We are concerned that our non-exempt employees will experience severe and adverse financial impacts as a result of this extended closure,” the district said in its letter.

Across the country, other states have canceled end-of-year testing, including in Texas, Florida, California and Washington as students continue to be out of school due to the coronavirus.

The federal Department of Education announced Friday that it would not enforce standardized testing requirements for K-12 students this academic year. A spokesman for the Department of Public Instruction said that state Superintendent Mark Johnson supports seeking the testing waiver and plans to pursue it with the state board.

Those tests are still mandated under state law, the results of which are used to evaluate teachers, award bonuses and assign letter grades to schools. Waiving those tests would also require a vote from the General Assembly.

In its letter to the state Friday, CMS said that even if students could return at the end of March, they would face enormous challenges getting caught up in time for end-of-year testing and meeting the required number of instructional hours.

“We recognize these are significant changes to the established framework for public schools,” the letter said. “However, the COVID-19 crisis is far from over….All of us are in uncharted territory now because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 4:37 PM.