More than one-third of CMS families opt out of being in the classroom this fall

Just over one-third of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students enrolled in the district’s virtual-only program for the fall, opting to stay out of classrooms even if CMS returns to in-person instruction during the first semester.

In total, 52,552 students signed up for the district’s remote academy, roughly 36% of last year’s total enrollment of 146,887. The students in the remote academy will not have to attend the in-person orientation at the start of the school year, and they will remain at home pursuing virtual instruction should the district switch to bringing students back into the classroom.

Families who are enrolled in the full remote academy will maintain their school placements, with most students being assigned to teachers from their school, the district said. Parents will have the option to switch in or out of the full remote placement at the end of the first semester, officials said, but they cannot change their placement before then.

CMS board members voted to return to school under an option called “Plan B+ remote,” which would begin the semester with two weeks of socially distant, rotational in-person orientation days before moving to remote instruction. The district said the three to four days of face-to-face time each student would have with their teacher would help build a stronger personal connection during virtual learning.

Under the approved plan, the district may switch back to in-person learning if Mecklenburg County’s coronavirus numbers improve. The Charlotte metro area is currently a hotspot, and the county has the highest number of deaths and confirmed cases in the state, with more than 19,000 people testing positive.

The district has yet to publicize what metrics it will use to determine when students will return to in-person learning. Last week, superintendent Earnest Winston said the district was putting together a group of medical professionals to come up with those metrics.

Under Governor Roy Cooper’s latest guidance, schools in North Carolina cannot reopen fully, and must maintain social distancing with safety precautions like temperature checks or pursue remote instruction. CMS’s moderate reopening plan, known as Plan B, would rotate students in three groups between one week of in-person learning and two weeks of remote instruction.

This story was originally published July 27, 2020 at 1:43 PM.