Nearly 40,000 CMS students begin in-person class this week: ‘It’s been a wild time.’
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools brought back its largest group of students to date for in-person learning on Monday, as elementary students set foot in the classroom for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic abruptly closed North Carolina schools in mid-March.
An estimated 39,000 students are enrolled in some form of in-person learning in grades K-5, chief equity officer Frank Barnes said Friday. Those students are divided into two rotations, with half attending school Mondays and Tuesdays and another half on Thursdays and Fridays. Under CMS’ plan for a gradual restart of in-person classrooms, older grades will stagger returns through the end of the year.
On Monday, at Dilworth Elementary School’s Latta Campus, which hosts the school’s third through fifth grade students, Principal Rebecca Crawford watched as roughly 100 students came back for their first in-person day. Some parents took pictures at drop-off, and despite the near freezing temperatures on a November “first day of school,” Crawford said she felt a welcome sense of normalcy.
“I have kids back in the building, the hallways are filled with their little feet and noises,” she said. “It’s a really exciting time to have them back with us.”
Yellow markers line the hallways, guiding children to stand six feet apart in line as they move through the school. Signs encouraging handwashing, social distancing and mask-wearing line the walls. Water fountains will only be used with cups or water bottles, and Crawford said the school was able to buy bright green, Dilworth-branded bottles for each student.
The school also purchased tables and chairs to spread through its courtyard, creating outdoor learning spaces that teachers can reserve for their classes. Lunches will be brought to each classroom, to avoid having students congregate in the cafeteria. Each class has a designated time slot to go to the bathroom, during which all students must wash their hands.
Crawford said the months of remote-only instruction helped with a smoother transition to in-person on Monday, as students, teachers and parents were already familiar with the technology and expectations.
Over the course of the school year, Crawford has redesigned Dilworth’s master schedule at least six times due to the constantly changing guidelines for reopening from the state and district level. Deputy Superintendent Matt Hayes said that principals and school-based employees have done an extraordinary amount of work to adapt.
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s the resilience of individuals in the building to do the work that needs to be done for kids and we are greatly appreciative of it,” he said.
Like most other school districts, CMS is offering a full-remote learning option to families who do not wish to send their children back to school during the coronavirus pandemic. Approximately 23,500 students in grades K-5 will continue with remote learning this week as part of the remote academy.
CMS’s biggest return to in-person instruction to date is taking place against a backdrop of rising coronavirus cases and indications of increased community spread in Mecklenburg County. One key measure the district is watching — the number of new cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period — is in the “red zone” of substantial community spread for more than 14 days.
Under the guidelines developed by CMS over the summer, one metric in red for two weeks would merit considering a return to all-remote instruction. But chief school performance officer Kathy Elling has said that no one metric would trigger any particular decision and that the dashboard must be used as a framework to guide decision-making.
In the past 14 days, 32 schools have had at least one positive COVID-19 case, Elling said on Monday. No clusters have been reported in CMS schools since the district reopened to students in-person. The district has offered in-person instruction for about a month, as children with special needs and pre-K students were among the first to return.
Teachers and other school-based employees have vocally raised concerns about safety in buildings, particularly in older buildings with HVAC systems that have no outside airflow.
District leaders have emphasized that they believe CMS is ready to reopen for elementary students, and have pointed to the new safety measures currently in place as children return to classrooms. Those include symptom and temperature screening, physical distancing and required mask-wearing.
Before students can arrive at school or board the bus, they must bring a self-attestation form stating they have not had any symptoms of COVID-19. The district has emphasized that students without those forms will not be left at the bus stop unattended. Bus drivers will have extra masks to give to students who show up without one.
Any student who has coronavirus-like symptoms — which include a fever of over 100.4 degrees, chills, a new cough or lost of taste or smell — will be sent to isolation rooms at the school until they can be sent home with a parent.
In-person and remote teaching in CMS
CMS originally planned to bring elementary school students back to classrooms using a three-week rotational approach. In September, Gov. Roy Cooper removed distancing restrictions on elementary schools and gave districts the option to reopen under Plan A, or full capacity.
Leaders in CMS said the district would not implement that reopening plan, but they did modify the schedule to condense grades K-5 into two groups that would be in classrooms with more regularity than the original rotation schedule. The lifting of strict distancing requirements also means CMS schools are separating students by the maximum distance possible, which may be less than the widely accepted six feet guideline in some cases.
For most elementary school teachers, Monday was the first major test of how to juggle live and remote instruction simultaneously. Chief academic officer Brian Kingsley said that instructional methods will depend on individual schools, based on their size, staffing and the percentage of students in full remote academy.
Some schools will take a paired teaching approach, with one teacher handling remote instruction and another leading live instruction across their shared student cohorts. Others are using technology like wireless microphone sets to be able to simultaneously engage live and remote students in the same lesson.
At Highland Renaissance Academy, Principal Erin Coles and her staff have spent the past weeks preparing to welcome more students back to the classroom. Each cohort has between 8 to 12 students per classroom, Coles said.
“It’s been a wild time for everybody, but my teachers here at Highland have risen to the occasion,” she said. “Teachers are rockstars. In CMS, they deeply love their kids. I know there is anxiety and there is worry, but my teachers have got it covered.”
On Friday, Jessica Secondi and other fifth grade teachers spent part of the morning testing a new technology set-up with Bluetooth mics that had just arrived. Using her desk as a homebase, Secondi said she wanted to be able to show the in-person kids on the blackboard whatever was on the screen for the virtual cohort, without having them look at a Chromebook.
“If they’re in person, they don’t need to be on the screen,” Secondi said. “We’ve got our wireless headphones that we’re trying to pair, and we’re figuring out how Zoom is going to work.”
In Lindy Andrews’ classroom on Friday, pairs of desks are spread out through the space, one with a blue name tag, the one next to it with a red one, indicating which students are seated there for A and B rotations. Separate supply sets for each student were laid out on their desks, clearly labeled to avoid cross contamination.
“The students have adapted so, so well,” Andrews said. “I know it will come with challenges. They’re nervous, they’re asking questions. We’ve talked about the expectations of wearing masks, not sharing supplies. I know they will rise to the occasion.”
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 3:05 PM.