A divided Wilson County Board of Education voted Tuesday to extend remote learning for most Wilson County Schools students until late March.

The board voted 4-3 to adopt Superintendent Lane Mills’ recommendation. For traditional schools and early colleges, teachers will return March 15, the end of the third grading period, and students will return March 22.

In Mills’ recommendation, exceptional children in the adaptive curriculum will continue attending school and transportation will be provided pending staff availability. Teachers and staff members can report to school buildings during the extended remote learning period, child nutrition will continue to provide meals for students and families, bus drivers will be offered the opportunity to work in various other capacities within the schools and day care centers at Beddingfield and Hunt high schools will continue to operate with capacity limits.

School board Chairwoman Christine Fitch temporarily delegated her role to Vice Chairman Henry Mercer, allowing her to make the motion to approve Mills’ remote learning plan. Board member Debora Powell seconded the motion.

Fitch, Powell, Mercer and board member Velma Barnes voted in favor of extending remote learning, while board members Blake Boykin, Beverly Boyette and Rhyan Breen opposed the motion.

Tuesday’s special meeting was called in response to a COVID-19 surge in Wilson County and throughout North Carolina.

Administrators told board members that increases in virus cases and contacts “created major limitations for the operations of the schools.”

The district’s elementary students planned to return to face-to-face instruction next week, while middle and high school students were scheduled to return to school on a hybrid plan, part remote and part face-to-face. Tuesday’s decision pushes that plan down the road until at least March 22 unless board members see a decrease in COVID-19 spread.

Wilson County Health Director Teresa Ellen told school board members that the county’s current positivity rate is 12% of those tested.

“We have seen a surge of overall cases since Thanksgiving,” Ellen said.

It isn’t always possible to determine where students or school employees contracted the virus, she explained.

Mills said in-person learning amid the pandemic’s second wave could cause teacher shortages.

“The real impact is the contacts and their impacts on our operations,” Mills told the board.

Ben Williams, assistant superintendent of administrative services, reported 33 COVID-19 cases among teachers and staff members since Christmas.

“If there are not enough adults to operate the schools, then that school has to go into remote learning,” Williams said.

During the second quarter, Wilson County Schools closed 12 classrooms, six schools, three cafeterias and one department due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

Norris Parker, assistant superintendent of human resource services, told the board that only 83% of total substitute positions in the district between Oct. 22 and Jan. 15 were filled. Calling that figure “significantly lower than normal,” Parker said there were 95 instances where a teacher assistant from another classroom setting filled a substitute teacher post.

“Principals have had to be very creative,” said Associate Superintendent Cheryl Wilson. “Principals have had to sometimes teach classes themselves.”

The idea that teacher assistants were leaving classrooms to fill in for substitutes bothered Powell, a former exceptional children’s teacher for the district.

“Whenever I had a teacher assistant in my classroom,” she said, “it changed the whole dynamic in the classroom.”

Wilson said few substitutes are willing to teach remotely, which requires some level of technical expertise that not all substitutes have.

Administrators also noted a bus driver shortage.

“At present, Beddingfield needs eight drivers, Fike needs four drivers and Hunt needs three drivers,” Williams said, “We are using all available drivers. We currently have no substitute drivers. All substitute drivers and licensed staff will be used to cover routes.”

Williams said only 22 students are currently permitted on each bus. Some routes may require two trips.

“Transportation to school is an obstacle,” Boykin said. “I don’t know that everyone in the community is aware of that.”

Citing constituent feedback he’s received, Boykin said many Wilson County residents want to resume face-to-face learning.

“It appears that the risks to students seems to be so much less. It is a challenge to have enough substitutes.” Mercer said. “While a lot of the parents may find it easy to send their children to school, there is quite a bit of apprehension on the part of the teachers, and understandably, because it appears that they are exposed to not just the children but the families of the children because of their exposure at home and then coming to school.”

Mercer said it concerns him that students could show up to school and face staffing shortages.

“I want them back as soon as they can be, but I also want them to go back at a time and in a manner that it can be sustained so that we will not be going into schools and then having to be out of schools and being removed and back and forth,” he said, “because I think that is less productive than either of the two ways.”

Boykin said the district’s “competition,” private and charter schools, are holding face-to-face classes.
“We’re losing students to them,” Boykin said. “I think that we need to figure out a way, with all the budget that we have, to try to get our kids back face-to-face. We need to do it safely. The main thing is I want to see an option there. I want to see the virtual as an option and I want to see the face-to-face as an option.”

Mercer said he didn’t disagree.

“I like options too, but we have to realize that when we designate going to anything other than Plan C (remote learning), the students have an option, but the teachers’ options are almost zero,” Mercer said.

Mills told the board that it’s a dilemma with no easy answers.

Fitch said administrators have done an outstanding job of continuing to “put your finger on the pulse of what is occurring and making the recommendations to this board for action.”

Fitch agrees that face-to-face instruction is best, but she’s concerned that many teachers aren’t willing to risk exposure.

“I would not like to see us lose outstanding teachers because we are going back into a face-to-face situation when they are not comfortable in coming back. I think that will increase the loss of our teachers. We don’t have enough substitutes, and that is a problem that is being faced every day across this state and across this country,” Fitch said. “I think we have to do what’s best for everybody. Some will be happy with whatever decision we make. Others will not be happy with whatever decision we make. But we have to work in the what is in the best interests of the students, the staff and the community.”

Breen suggested resuming face-to-face instruction for grades K-5.

“The largest albatross seems to be how to deal with getting the middle school and the high school kids back,” Breen said.

Breen agreed with Fitch and Mercer that in-person learning would be best.

“What I would ask and request the board to consider is bringing back not our most medically vulnerable population, but at least our most academically vulnerable population — which are those K-5 folks — back under the plan that we were operating under,” Breen said. “It would seem to me that we could at least service those kids under those plans not withstanding some of the classroom quarantining and some of the schools that had to shut down closer to the break.”

Breen said there was a 10-point swing in his son’s grades between the first and second grading period this year.

“That’s the difference between remote learning and face-to-face,” Breen said.

Breen said the board should bring K-5 students back to school Jan. 25 under Plan A, which was their instructional model for the second nine-week grading period.

Boyette and Boykin agreed with Breen’s plan.

Mercer, Powell and Barnes said their preference is to wait.

“I think we need to wait an additional two or three weeks to send them back and at least make the vaccine available to the teacher before coming back,” Powell said.

Barnes said she is currently recovering from COVID-19.

“I worry about the teachers,” Barnes said. “I am concerned about the positivity rate being 12.9%.

Barnes said she would rather wait a little bit longer and “err on the side of safety.”

Board members said they’ll consider holding another special meeting to change the remote learning plans if Wilson County’s COVID-19 statistics improve.

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