Cooper order means CMS will close Monday, three days earlier than planned

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will close Monday, following an executive order by Gov. Roy Cooper issued Saturday. Under the executive order, all K-12 schools in the state will close for at least two weeks starting on Monday.

The closure will not affect paychecks for teachers during the next two weeks, Cooper said.

The immediate closure escalates what the CMS board voted for on Friday. That plan approved starting spring break early in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus in Mecklenburg County, releasing students weeks before the vacation was scheduled to start. CMS had earlier planned to have school Monday to Wednesday.

The school board voted Friday evening to change the school calendar to start spring break March 23, making next Thursday and Friday teacher work days. Originally, CMS’s spring break was scheduled for April 13-17.

“The board feels strongly that we need to put the district in the best position to move quickly if necessary,” Board chair Elyse Dashew said. “We must be mindful of the disruption of closing schools would cause our families, but we must prepare for the worst to protect the health and safety of our students and staff.”

The vote came days after Mecklenburg County health officials announced two presumptive positive tests for COVID-19. CMS said that because of the executive order, the board plans to revert spring break back to the original dates.

Initially, state officials and the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention did not recommend widespread closures, but CMS said that the early break plan was designed to allow the district to plan for further disruptions to instruction if they occur.

The district is working on plans to prepare for possible virtual instruction and long-term closures, Superintendent Earnest Winston said, while maximizing protections for employees.

“Amending the school academic calendar will allow us to plan, should we need, for online instruction,” Winston said. “The calendar also allows us the flexibility to compensate teachers by moving spring break up. That’s important. We want to make sure we can take care of our employees.”

The statewide closure is the latest in a series of moves officials have taken to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The district started limiting international travel, before expanding those limitations to all CMS-affiliated travel by students and staff.

For a district like CMS, the sudden change to the school calendar could have major ramifications for students, families and staff. CMS is the state’s second-largest district, serving around 150,000 students. Nearly 40,000 of those students are considered to be in poverty.

More than 40% of the district’s students qualify for free or subsidized meals. Almost 4,000 students receive McKinney-Vento services, a federal program that provides support to students with unstable housing situations.

Winston said that the district had plans in place to continue providing meals to students who need them, but did not share further details. He and the board did not say when CMS would make a decision on when students could return to school.

Dashew said that while staff needed a few more days to get their plans “fully baked,” she was confident in the accommodations for virtual learning, meals and other issues the district is developing. She said that given the rapidly changing situation, CMS needed to act quickly.

“We cannot wait for (the state and others) to make this call,” Dashew said Friday. “Based on what I’m hearing from the community, we have got to move forward.”

Thelma Byers-Bailey said that while some families called for an immediate closure, the board was cognizant of parents facing challenges taking time off from their jobs. She said the three days of school next week would hopefully give families time to arrange for childcare.

Margaret Marshall said families should use their discretion if they are uncomfortable with continuing to send their children to school for three days next week.

“Use your judgment,” she said. “You have the parental right to keep your child at home.”

Sean Strain expressed dissatisfaction with the move, saying the district should have closed schools on Friday. He described the three days of school next week as the largest gathering in the county, in a time when officials have advised against being in big crowds.

“We can either choose to have the largest gatherings, or not have them,” Strain said.

Other districts in North Carolina were earlier in their decisions to announce temporary closures. Chapel-Hill Carborro, Orange County and Durham County public school systems were the first in the state to suspend classes after a cluster of coronavirus cases in the Triangle area.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro also moved up its spring break and will use a week of online learning, The News & Observer reported. Orange County will hold two weeks of online classes, with no changes to spring break.

In Wake County, the state’s largest district with nearly 162,000 students, more than 16,000 people had signed an online petition asking the district to close until the coronavirus threat has passed and to switch to online classes in the interim. On Saturday, the district announced that it would close until March 27.

In the Charlotte area, the Mooresville Graded School District and Iredell-Statesville Schools will extend spring break until March 20.

Twenty-four coronavirus cases, including two in Mecklenburg County and one in Cabarrus County, have been reported statewide, officials said.

This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 7:39 PM.