BREAKING: CMS likely to extend all-virtual learning
Emergency meeting called for Thursday morning, board chairwoman says, following Mecklenburg health department recommendation to stay closed
Good evening! Today is Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021 and we’re coming to you with HOT BREAKING NEWS.
As Covid numbers climb, tens of thousands of parents and students will wait a couple more days for official decision
by Cristina Bolling and Tony Mecia
It looks like the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education is poised to delay the reopening of schools once again.
The board will decide Thursday morning whether to delay the district’s Jan. 19 scheduled reopening during an emergency meeting that, oddly, was announced during a regular meeting of the school board tonight.
Thousands of parents were logged on tonight to watch the meeting on Facebook Live, expecting to hear the final verdict on whether their children would pack backpacks and head back to class next week. Some 70 parents and teachers were signed up to speak on whether schools should stay closed or open back up.
But it appeared that new guidance released by Mecklenburg County Health Department director Gibbie Harris in a late-afternoon news release could have torpedoed any chance the school board would make a final call tonight.
Harris issued a 9-point directive in the news release, which included “utilize full-virtual options for work, school and any other activity where in-person activity is not required.” The directive, which is advisory and does not carry the force of law, lasts for three weeks.
Health department changes stance: At a county commission committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the school board meeting was scheduled to start, Harris said: “Our recommendation at this point from a public health perspective is it does not make sense to bring kids back into the schools at this point.” (It’s on video at 2:28 mark)
It was an unexpected move for Harris, given that about 24 hours before, at a news conference Monday afternoon, she said:
We believe that schools are in reasonable shape to be able to handle the number of children that they were seeing in December, based on the experience they had from that, what they learned, and what we were seeing in terms of cases.
CMS school board chair Elyse Dashew gave this announcement at the start of tonight’s meeting, just before the slate of 70 speakers were about to begin making remarks:
Based on the report that we’re going to be hearing later this evening, and based on new information that has come from the Mecklenburg County health department late this afternoon, I do anticipate that we will be considering changes and that will happen in an emergency meeting on Thursday morning at 10:30.
Middle and high schoolers have yet to return to school buildings for classes after being sent home in mid-March at the start of the Covid pandemic. Elementary schoolers returned for two-day-a-week rotations for several weeks in November but were moved back to full-remote instruction in December when Covid cases began spiking in Mecklenburg County.
Tomorrow: Look for full coverage of the CMS meeting in tomorrow morning’s Ledger.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith