Our view: It’s time for WCPS to pump the brakes on reopening plan

We would love to tell you that when your children returned to school Monday, everything was ready to go.

We would like to share with you the challenges the district has faced since teachers returned to campuses last week — and what has been done to iron out the concerns.

We would like to be able to tell you that we have talked with Interim Superintendent Dr. James Merrill and that he has answered the questions the community has been asking about keeping real learning happening and ensuring teachers, staff and students are safe under the state-mandated school reopening standards.

We would like to have updates from Central Office staff in charge of classrooms, transportation, human resources, sanitizing buildings and making sure the procedures mandated by the governor’s order are in place and being practiced by staff and personnel.

We would like to tell you that the equipment we need is in place and at the ready and to explain exactly how it will be used.

We would like to update you on where online learning stands — and perhaps even be able to give you a crash course in the district’s new education platform for high schools, Canvas, and to allow you to ask some questions of the district staff charged with making it work.

But we can’t — and it is not for lack of trying.

We have requested no less than four times to speak directly to Merrill.

You remember him, right? He was the one who advised the board that being transparent with the community and being open and available were critical to regaining the trust of parents, teachers and staff after the discovery earlier this summer of the financial debacle that left the district millions of dollars in debt.

Guess what we have heard back.

That’s right, butkus (also known as nada, nothing, silence, crickets.)

He did tell us this afternoon — through district spokesperson Ken Derksen — that he was “not interested” in participating in an interview.

Well. Ok then.

None of this is a surprise. We expected exactly the answer we got. And we only got it because we left a voicemail that was — in a word – direct, letting the district know that we were prepared to move forward without their comments.

You see, the district, and the board of education charged with leading it, are not too happy with the New Old North right now.

That is what happens when you get asked some uncomfortable questions and aren’t able to rely on your sugar-coated meeting synopses and blatant disregard of your own board policies and state open meetings law.

Wayne County Public Schools’ new policy on openness and transparency seems to be to dodge questions, to spin the facts and to avoid anyone who might be putting two and two together and getting the indisputable answer of four.

And if that fails, how about just becoming your own “news source” and spinning away with press releases and robo calls and everything else that is nothing but your “happy face” recitation of what is going on — no questions asked or answered, what’s the need?

Oh, and add to that transparency plan taking advice from a high-priced Raleigh attorney who has already cashed an eye-popping $1.5 million in checks over the last 30 months (that’s a preview of what is coming next) and seems to have a rather curious position of importance in the determination of the future of Wayne County’s schools, including finding a superintendent search firm.

And, of course, throw in a couple well-placed policy changes making it clear to staff and teachers — and administrators — that they better not share anything about what is really going on with anyone, or risk losing their jobs.

Besides, after all, why would the public need to know what is really happening inside schools that are funded by their tax dollars and charged with preparing their children for the real world?

It is enough to make you wonder what else is afoot behind the scenes up there on Royall Avenue.

But let’s address the other elephant in the room.

Do you really think this is just incompetence in the Central Office?

We don’t.

We’d like to take you back a few weeks.

Remember when Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Tamara Berman-Ishee stood at a podium and told board members that what was necessary to get the school year off the ground could not be reasonably done in the small window of time the board had allowed to prepare for a Plan C opening and, soon, Plan B hybrid learning?

Remember how she said teachers needed several weeks of training before they could reasonably be expected to provide substantive online instruction?

Remember how she noted that the devices necessary for students to use for simultaneous remote learning and Plan B were not in and wouldn’t be in until October? (By the way, several parents have told us this week that their schools have already run out of devices and so WCPS didn’t actually have enough technology to ensure Plan C went smoothly, either.)

Remember when board member Pat Burden practically begged for more time and BOE Chairman Chris West also suggested that the board listen to its administrators who were warning that the district was not ready?

Oh, and remember when board member Len Henderson recommended that the county open under Plan C and wait to reopen schools under a Plan B scenario for nine weeks?

Or how about when just about every district around Wayne County decided that while they would like to reopen under Plan B to get children back in classrooms, they just were not confident they were ready to do it efficiently and safely?

Or how some districts across the nation have cut student days by a few weeks so teachers could polish their online learning skills before ANY instruction started?

But that wasn’t enough of a warning for board members Wade Leatham, Ven Faulk, Jennifer Strickland and Dr. Joe Democko.

Why? Because Strickland, who is the board’s vice chairman, spoke to some school administrators and teachers who said they could be ready in two weeks — and then pushed ANOTHER quick vote through.

The saving grace is that Democko assured the community that the board would be malleable and would come back to reconsider plans for reopening if things weren’t going well.

Well, guess what?

We are here.

And it isn’t because of the teachers or administrators. So, don’t even start with that argument. It’s a slap in the face to the men and women who give so much to our children.

They are educators, social workers, mental health workers, nutritionists, de facto parents, coaches, mentors and now, we are asking them to be health care workers.

A little time to make sure they get this right should be a given.

We would ask West if he plans to call for another vote, since according to new board policy, he is the only one who can speak for the district, but when we call him, we get a fast busy signal. And the text messages we send to his cell phone number don’t go through either.

We can’t say for sure why. It might have just been a bad connection — three times — but we have our suspicions (google blocked numbers).

But to be fair, we are publicly offering to meet or to talk with West or any school board member who would like to discuss the pressure of making this decision, their concerns or what they think the next step should be.

The same offer is made here, again, to Merrill and any assistant superintendents he chooses who have information that they want to share with the community.

We told the district we were not waiting anymore. You deserve better — and so do our children.

And because no matter how much you try to keep stuff quiet — and there are too many people in this community who care too much about their children, students, co-workers and the community to keep silent — here are just a few of the reports from inside WCPS you won’t be reading in Derksen’s latest “news story” that paints a glowing picture of how things have gone since teachers and some students returned to campus:

• Teachers were given an 8-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer, a 50-pack of wipes and a 5-pack of masks for their rooms to last the entire semester. Those supplies came from the federal government. They have received no additional cleaning supplies from the local school district and many of them have told the New Old North they were told to not expect reimbursements should they feel the need to buy their own.

• Several teachers from schools across the district have reported that touch points are not being wiped down between gatherings.

• Parents who signed up for the state-mandated Virtual Academy because of COVID-19 risk factors have been told they are required to come to campus with their students in tow for orientation sessions. Many have reached out to the New Old North to note that the reason they chose Virtual Academy was to ensure they could keep their children out of public places because of fear of COVID exposure.

• WCPS bus drivers expressed concern that they were forced to attend a meeting on a local high school campus last week and were not temperature checked or screened by the Central Office staff running the meeting. Several have also told the New Old North they were told they are no longer required to administer temperature checks to students before they get on WCPS buses. When they asked why the policy was changed, they were told it was the parents’ responsibility to temperature check their children before sending them to the bus stop. Because, if you’re a teacher, you know that parents of sick children never, say, give their kids Tylenol before they come to school when they are running a fever.

• Several bus drivers who have already begun driving routes — Wayne School of Engineering and Wayne Early Middle College High School are back on campus under Plan B — said they have yet to receive a single filled out attestation form from a student that is supposed to be presented before they get on the bus. The drivers were told to allow them to ride anyway and to “put them in the seat behind us and tell the school when we get there that they didn’t bring the form.” 

“I was like, ‘Excuse me. Who’s protecting me?’” one driver told the New Old North.

• Dozens of high school teachers say they have not yet received adequate training on the Canvas platform some students have already begun using. Berman-Ishee told the School Board that several weeks of training would be needed — both for Central Office staff and teachers — but teachers at schools across the district say that in lieu of formal training, they are being told to watch YouTube tutorials to gain proficiency in the platform and have no idea how they can successfully teach at this point.

• Students and parents are flooding high school phone lines because, despite their “orientations,” they cannot access Canvas or, if they can successfully log in, they cannot figure out how to submit assignments. Many students on the high school level who have still not received laptops from the district are also, according to many angry parents, being marked absent. (Elementary and middle schools are also fielding calls from parents who don’t understand how work is already being assigned when they have yet to attend one of the district’s “induction ceremonies.”)

• Internet access at many WCPS schools is spotty, according to staff across the county. That means many teachers can’t log in to Google Classroom, Canvas or PowerSchool to remote teach efficiently and Monday, the state acknowledged an issue with overuse of the system that slowed the network to a snail’s pace.

• An email sent to the New Old North Thursday evening confirmed that a person who had tested positive for COVID-19 was on the Meadow Lane Elementary School campus and some staff members might have been exposed. Despite the publication of the email, WCPS has not confirmed the incident — nor did the district notify the public of the positive test.

• An email sent to the New Old North Friday evening confirmed that a person who had tested positive for COVID-19 was on the Carver Elementary School campus and some staff members might have been exposed. Despite the publication of the email, WCPS has not confirmed the incident — nor did the district notify the public of the positive test.

• WCPS issued a news release Tuesday evening informing the public that a person who had tested positive for COVID-19 was on the Wayne Early Middle College High School campus. WEMCHS is one of two campuses that have already opened to students under the state’s Plan B hybrid model.

• In the wake of confirmation that a member of the WCPS Maintenance Department had tested positive for COVID-19, several members of the department told the New Old North they are symptomatic, but have been told to come to work anyway, pending the results of their tests. The person who tested positive earlier this month allegedly told coworkers that the district said he could return to work “as long as he wore a mask” but that he didn’t want to put his colleagues at risk. (Teachers and staff members from across the district say members of the Maintenance Department have been on their campuses this week and many have not been wearing masks or practicing social distancing — and that they ride together “side by side” in WCPS trucks without wearing masks.)

• Orientation events, from drive-ins to “chaotic” mass gatherings, have been described by several parents who have contacted the New Old North as “unorganized,” “unprofessional,” and “unsafe.”

• A parent of an 8-year-old who attends school in Rosewood signed into her child’s Google classroom to find, on her child’s class dashboard, an invitation to join a class called “Babys daddys.” You read that right. The child was 8 years old. (Here is a screenshot. The names of the mother and daughter have been redacted for their protection.)

And just because we know what the arguments will be, we are going to talk about something else, too.

This is not just about COVID-19 anymore. And it’s not about dogging the district.

WCPS has amazing teachers, administrators and staff and many of them are doing the best they can.

And we get that there are still some questions about the way this pandemic has been handled and even more doubt about which experts are saying the right things and which are just wrong.

We understand that there have been sacrifices and losses, big ones — families who could not mourn loved ones or sit by their bedside as they passed; delayed health procedures and critical tests; huge tax revenue losses that will affect local and state funding and programs; businesses that are critical to the Wayne County economy that have had to lay off employees or even close their doors; children who have been home for months, losing critical services and education; parents who do not know what to do about more time with their children in remote instruction at home and jobs that won’t — or can’t — wait.

And we even get that politics has tainted everything from coverage of the virus to evaluation of what a measured and responsible approach should be.

But we are stuck with this lot.

Gov. Roy Cooper made this choice — ordering Plan B with the option to default to Plan C, all-remote learning.

We think it was a cop-out, a decision made for political expediency not conviction.

In case you have forgotten, Cooper is up for re-election this November. Dumping the decision on the local districts is like saying “not it.”

So, we have a governor’s order and a list of constantly changing “guidelines” for opening schools safely.

We might not like them, but we have to follow them.

And no matter how much we want to see our children back in classrooms and this COVID-19 nightmare over, we aren’t there yet.

And frankly, given the aforementioned security breach on Google Classroom, the lack of training for high school staff on Canvas and the lack of devices and hotspots for students, we aren’t really ready for Plan C quite yet either.

A little more time and a little more inconvenience are not too much to ask. And we can get through this if it is really about the children.

The evidence is there. We need more time. Our teachers need more time. Our students need more time. Our school personnel need more time. Central Office needs more time.

You can bet that district administrators were read the riot act last week. They can’t say what they really think — or tell you how concerned they are.

But you should know that there are many of them who are trying as hard as they can to get their schools ready and to make them safe. And some Central Office personnel are doing their part, too.

One would wonder why such a herculean task would be dumped on a staff that is still reeling after the budget disaster and the “resignation” of a superintendent and finance officer.

We hope it is not because the board is looking for a herd of scapegoats when this doesn’t work.

Our school personnel need us to speak up — and by reaching out over the last week by the dozens, they have demanded we do — to insist that the board make the right choice and the community knows what is really going on inside Wayne County schools.

West was right about something during the board’s last meeting. The only people who really know what it is going to take to make sure learning — safe, substantive learning — happens on WCPS campuses are those teachers, staff members and administrators on the front lines. 

This is not about the national debate, the president’s tweets, politically expedient mask pronouncements by the Democratic nominee, the election or the bickering in Washington.

It’s not about Cooper’s motives and calculated indecision.

We can drill down on that later.

This is about us, right here, right now.

That is all any of us need to know.

Perhaps that will be enough for the board, too.