BREAKING: A bipartisan deal on school reopening has been reached.
The two sticking points had been whether districts would be able to respond in the event of an outbreak and whether middle/high schools would resume in-person schooling in a way that allowed for social distancing.
That’s why the last bill was vetoed.
It wasn’t about whether to reopen - it was about how to do it safely.
Today’s deal strikes a balance:
All elementary schools will be required to operate under plan A, which is full in-person instruction with lots of safety precautions. *Note: The majority of elementary schools in the state are already doing this.*
For middle and high schools, school districts can choose plan A or plan B (staggered in-person instruction). If they choose plan A, they have to notify DHHS and provide a plan for how they’re going to do it safely.
The Governor still has the authority to order a closure, restriction, or reduction on a district-by-district basis AND local districts can close classrooms or schools in the event of an outbreak.
In addition, parents are free to choose fully remote schooling.
Two important things to know:
First, most of the “reopening schools” issue has already been taken care of at the local level.
Of the 115 school districts in our state, roughly 100 have resumed some form of in-person schooling for middle and high school and nearly all have resumed in-person for elementary school.
Of those that remain, almost all of them have announced plans to resume some form of in-person schooling within the next two weeks.
Second, the big issue was about the difference between elementary and middle/high schools.
When people use general phrasing like, “Kids aren’t as likely to get the virus,” it masks an important distinction between elementary-aged students and middle/high school-aged students.
It’s true that elementary age students are less susceptible to the virus. That’s why the vast majority of school districts have already agreed on how to resume in-person schooling for elementary school students and, as a result, this bill won’t have much impact on them.
Middle and high school students are much more susceptible to infection, so they have to be socially distanced, which is why many school districts have brought them back with a staggered schedule.
In many schools, there just isn’t enough classroom space to keep them distanced if they’re all there at once, so schools are rotating them through.
The two parties were always pretty close on how to proceed. It was just about making sure that we took special precautions with middle and high schools and that districts could respond in the event of an outbreak.
This deal allows for both of those things. But it should be noted that most school districts - including CMS - are well ahead of this legislation, which will go into effect 21 days after passage (likely this week).
It also means that by not passing the original bill we arrived at a better place: School districts were given the flexibility to make their own decisions about how to reopen based on the prevalence of the virus in that district and...
...the amount of classroom (and bus) capacity for middle and high schoolers. This bill puts some guardrails on the overall process going forward but it also gives us the ability to react quickly if something goes wrong.
It’s good to see both parties finding a way forward, but let’s save the real credit for the teachers, parents, and students. This has been an extraordinary struggle and there should be genuine recognition of how hard they’ve worked to hold things together.
Thank you to our parents.
Thank you to our educators.
Thank you to our school staff and personnel.
And thank you to our students, from whom we have asked a tremendous amount and to whom we owe every effort to help get them back on track.
- Jeff
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Our first town hall was in-person at a local park.
Folks gave their thoughts about disability awareness, veteran’s health care, and gerrymandering.
Then I drove over to Main Street in Monroe, parked outside the courthouse, put my laptop on my trunk, and did a virtual town hall with another 50 people.
I spent the morning at a vaccination event for teachers and school personnel.
It was a massive operation with lots of moving parts, but I just want to tell you about one piece of it.
In the picture, you can see Georgina filling a syringe with vaccine from the vial.
[thread]
That's her designated job at these events: fill syringes.
She's excellent at it, and her skill is absolutely crucial.
Why?
Because, given that she's done it thousands of times, she's learned how to get six or even seven doses out of a vial that officially contains only five.
I watched her work for several minutes.
Basically, she's perfected the art of getting every last drop.
One of the big questions facing Congress right now is how bold the next recovery package needs to be.
From my conversations, it feels like there’s a simple disconnect here.
[thread]
For lots of professionals, the economic recovery has already occurred. Their office may have done some layoffs early on, but folks have largely been rehired and things are chugging along.
You see this in the numbers for North Carolina.
Our financial and business services sectors have basically completely recovered in terms of job loss.