In an August 27 letter to state legislators, the Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board requested flexibility on remote learning instructional requirements which have seen young children spend many hours each day sitting in front of computer screens.
With COVID still spreading at dangerously high rates and insufficient resources to guarantee safe in-person learning, CMS has started the 2020-21 school year under Plan C, which means all students are learning from home.
The struggle to balance staff and student health and safety with learning needs and legal requirements during a pandemic has been a challenge to say the least.
Two weeks into the new school year, parents have complained that the amount of mandatory screen time is unhealthy and unsustainable, especially for elementary students.
With state legislators due back in Raleigh on September 2, yesterday CMS Board Chair Elyse Dashew and members of the board’s Intergovernmental Relations Committee sent a letter to General Assembly leadership requesting flexibility in the number of instructional hours required under state law.
The letter, addressed to Senate Pro Tempore Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore, and chairs of education committees in both the NC House and Senate, asks the General Assembly to “provide LEAs with flexibility in providing six hours per day of instructional time so that screen time can be limited when needed.”
I have some thoughts about the email you emerged from hibernation to send educators in North Carolina today. You know, the one where you publicly called for the resignation of a Black member of the State Board of Education who has dedicated his life to dismantling white supremacy?
I just mailed you a copy of White Fragility, a book which I think will help you process the strong feelings you’re experiencing and to better understand what white supremacy is.
I even sprang for the gift wrap.
Here’s a little preview for you:
White supremacist doesn’t always refer to individuals who are hiding a pointy white hat in their closets or openly expressing hatred for people who don’t look like them. White supremacy refers to a system of racial domination which enables white people like you and me to control politics, business, etc.
When people do what you did today and equate the term “white supremacist” with radical racial hate, that mis-definition–intentionally or not–obscures systems of oppression that need to be brought to light and prevents them from being addressed.
Please don’t use school email for obscuring systems of oppression.
Now if you’re thinking to yourself “What systems of oppression?” it’s important to acknowledge that people who haven’t been victims of such systems find it harder to see them.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
The book says that naming white supremacy puts the full weight of responsibility for changing this dynamic on those who control the institutions. At DPI that would currently be you, although I am delighted to say we will elect your replacement in 75 days, and you’ll be vaguely remembered as “that Istation guy” in the near future.
The person that takes over your job will lead a community of educators that is growing in our willingness to look at our history with the humility and honesty that you so clearly lack, to listen to others who have experienced things we have not, and to ask “What is my part and what can I do to make it better?”
Your book is scheduled to arrive on Monday. I’m told that despite your public support for ‘in-person’ you’re working from home, so you’ll need to actually make a trip into the building to pick it up.
A Union County Public Schools policy used to restrict district employees’ personal use of social media may be violating First Amendment rights, according to the director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition.
At issue is policy 5-22, which lays out the Union County School Board’s expectations for how employees will conduct themselves when using social media:
The Board understands that employees may engage in the use of social media during their personal time. School employees who use social media for personal purposes must be mindful that they are responsible for their public conduct even when not acting in their capacities as school system employees. All school employees, including student teachers and independent contractors, shall comply with the requirements of this policy when using electronic social media for personal purposes.
The policy states
Any postings, on professional or personal social media sites, of the following nature are prohibited:
● Creates a harassing, demeaning, or hostile working environment for any employee.
● Disrupts the smooth and orderly flow of work, or the delivery of services to the staff or students.
● Harms the goodwill and reputation of staff, students or the community at large.
● Erodes the public’s confidence in the district.
● Involves any kind of criminal activity or harms the rights of others, may result in criminal prosecution or civil liability to those harmed, or both.
Over the past few years there have been numerous instances where Union County employees have been reprimanded by their principals or summoned to the district office and dealt with over supposed violations of this social media policy.
I talked with several Union County employees who have experienced such treatment, all of whom requested anonymity out of fear of retribution from the school district.
Some of the employees have gotten in hot water for publicly questioning specific district policies around issues like having to pay for a sub who doesn’t show up, or for blowing the whistle on COVID-related matters.
One of them said, “UCPS effectively silenced me a couple of years ago when I was officially written up in my permanent employee file, sent downtown to meet with the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and his staff, and forced to sign a statement that I would not ever post anything on social media again that ‘erodes the public’s confidence in the district.’ The post in question was a three-word noninflammatory comment on a coworker’s post, agreeing that there was a lack of effective leadership.”
Another Union County employee spoke of being admonished for criticizing President Trump in a post that had no connection to Union County schools or education and informed that it was forbidden to criticize any elected official.
It’s unclear if the Sun Valley High School principal has faced any discipline for publicly criticizing Governor Cooper’s COVID decisions, or whether policy in the highly conservative county is applied differently depending on the employee’s political point of view.
All of the Union County employees I spoke with had been reprimanded for comments they made outside school hours on personal social media platforms. In making those comments, none of them had been speaking in their official capacity as school employees or on behalf of the school district.
According to North Carolina Open Government Coalition Director Brooks Fuller, that’s a crucial distinction.
Dr. Fuller notes a 2006 Supreme Court decision on Garcetti v. Ceballos determined that public employees have limited rights when they’re speaking on behalf of their employer. But when they’re speaking in their private capacity, they are protected by the First Amendment. Fuller believes that prohibiting employee speech that “harms the goodwill and reputation of staff, students or the community at large” or “erodes the public’s confidence in the district” could potentially violate constitutional rights:
“The problems with these third and fourth bullet points is that, theoretically, if you take them to their logical conclusion, they would capture even truthful speech about matters of public concern that cause reputational harm or undermine people’s confidence in the school district.
“Let’s say, for instance, the leaders of the school district knew about risks revolving around COVID that they didn’t share or didn’t adequately protect their employees, and someone blew the whistle. There is nothing more publicly important than that speech, and this policy could potentially be used to punish that speech because it’s so broad and because it’s so vague. So it has two serious constitutional problems there.
“For instance, one piece of that says you can’t speak in a way that undermines somebody’s reputation. But if you speak truthfully, and they’ve earned a bad reputation because of dangerous policies, that’s publicly important speech and it’s protected by the First Amendment.”
The United States Constitution is one important reason the rights of employees to express their views must be respected, but it’s also worth mentioning that using fear to control the conversations of people who work for you is just poor leadership.
The ability of a school district to effectively serve its students depends in part on whether it is willing to hear legitimate criticism, consider those perspectives, and course correct if change is needed. When a school board actively discourages feedback from front line workers who have the clearest view of how policy actually plays out, it deprives the district of opportunities to improve.
In addition, having Big Brother constantly monitoring off-the-clock discussions and punishing employees for simply speaking their minds is harmful to morale, and positive morale has never been more important in the education profession than it is right now. Union County is located right next to a district–Charlotte-Mecklenburg–whose school board has stated publicly that it will “act to ensure that employees feel free to express their views without fear of retribution,” and where the local salary supplement is roughly double what it is in Union County.
Rather than driving good educators away, Union County needs to be intentional about cultivating positive relationships between leadership and rank and file employees and creating working conditions that will allow it to attract and retain the engaged, solutions-oriented educators our schools need.
Union County Association of Educators members who believe their First Amendment rights may have been violated under the UCPS social media policy are highly encouraged to contact the NCAE Advocacy Center for legal assistance.
A coalition of more than 100 experts and advocacy organizations led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is calling for schools to avoid “making hasty purchases of EdTech” and rather to prioritize meaningful offline learning experiences, even in a time of widespread school closures.
We are approaching an educational crossroads, accelerated by the COVID-19 school closures and remote learning experiments of this spring. We cannot afford another year in which students become alienated from the learning process. Furthermore, the decisions and investments school districts make in the coming months will shape educational practices long after the pandemic ends.
The undersigned urge educators and policymakers to look beyond simplistic EdTech solutions, and find ways to limit children’s time on computers and digital devices during the coming school year and beyond. We recognize that there is significant uncertainty about what school will look like in the fall and that education across the United States will look vastly different from state to state and district to district. Nevertheless, whether school is in-person, remote, or some combination thereof, educators should ensure that their curricula and assignments center on offline, high-engagement components such as hands-on, project- and place-based learning.
Seizing an opportunity to capture a larger portion of the $10 trillion global education market,1 for-profit EdTech vendors are selling families and policymakers the false premise that EdTech products offer effective and budget-friendly ways to learn. In reality, the products are costly to purchase and maintain, and frequently crowd teachers and staff out of the budget. The products also ensnare students, whose data and brand loyalty are harvested, and who often become targets of relentless marketing efforts. These efforts include the insidious practice of upselling, through which students and their families are pushed to purchase premium versions, thereby exacerbating inequalities among students. Equally important, these programs reduce the roles played by creative, compassionate teachers in educating the whole child. Learning happens best in the context of human relationships and is lost when the balance is skewed toward online platforms.
The value of quality, teacher-driven instruction is well-supported by research.2 There is no credible research supporting industry claims that online, personalized learning programs improve academic outcomes.3,4 Test scores do not rise. Dropout rates do not fall. Graduation rates do not improve. In 2019, fewer than half of virtual and blended schools had “acceptable” state performance ratings, and only 30% of virtual schools associated with for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMO) managed to meet even that low bar.5 A study of millions of high school students in 36 countries by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that students who frequently used computers at school “do a lot worse in most learning outcomes, even after accounting for social background and student demographics.”6
EdTech is destined to underdeliver because of how the human brain reacts to screen-based media. In short: the brain doesn’t like it. Reading text on paper increases comprehension, retention, and sheer satisfaction with reading as an activity.7 Writing by hand boosts idea generation as well as retention.8 Children between the ages of 8 and 11 who spend more than two hours per day on screens perform worse on memory, language, and thinking tests than those who spend less time.9 The sensorimotor stimuli that screens offer are paltry compared to real life stimuli, and developing brains are more severely impacted by this disparity.10
Prolonged time on screens impairs more than just cognition; it is also hard on the body. Working on screens for long periods leads to digital eye strain – with symptoms including dry eye, headaches, and blurry vision – and increases the risk of myopia.11,12 Research has clearly established a link between increased screen time and worsened sleep for children and teens.13 A wealth of research also links screen exposure to childhood obesity.14
Additionally, EdTech platforms collect sensitive student data and require substantial time online, putting our children’s personal safety at risk. A study of 150 EdTech apps and services found “widespread lack of transparency and inconsistent privacy and security practices for products intended for children and students.”15 After investigating a series of data breaches that allowed hackers to use sensitive student data to “contact, extort, and threaten students with physical violence and release of their personal information,” the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center warned in 2018 that EdTech poses threats to student privacy and safety, including “social engineering, bullying, identity theft, or other means for targeting children.”16 That warning proved prescient. This spring, the FBI issued an additional warning to parents,17 and The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 4 million reports of online sexual abuse – an increase of nearly 3 million from April 2019.18 In addition, sensitive student data, once processed into “de-identified data,” can be used for non-educational, profitable activities. Worse, de-identified data can be reconstituted as personally-identifiable data.19 Privacy laws have yet to catch up with technological know-how.
While EdTech is touted as a way to increase equity in schools, it falls short on that front as well. Ensuring that every family has free or low-cost internet access and all students who must learn from home have access to a device are critical and worthy goals, as the recent global pandemic has further revealed. There is no evidence, however, that 1:1 programs reduce the achievement gap between children from poor and wealthy families. Indeed, research has found that the introduction of internet access into low-income households actually results in lower academic achievement.20 Programs to give low-income families access during the pandemic must be accompanied by tech-intentional and low-tech pedagogies.
For the safety, wellbeing, and academic potential of our children, reducing screen use during the pandemic has to be a priority – no matter the adopted reopening plan. Real, personalized learning can take place without overly relying on technology, especially algorithm-driven, computerized instruction. We urge educators to deepen learning for children during the pandemic with high-engagement, tech-intentional teaching and learning based on the following principles:
Limit screen time. Use technology only when necessary for communication, collaboration, research, or facilitating creative expressions of student learning. Algorithm-driven adaptive learning platforms, gamified learning, and similar apps that incorporate persuasive design to keep kids online should be avoided.
Embrace teachers and relationships over EdTech. Teachers engage learners better than EdTech, and learners engage better when learning is authentic. Remote learning, when needed, should be driven by human interactions and designed to maximize student engagement and agency through use of project- and place-based pedagogies and other self directed projects.
Maximize offline, hands-on learning. Students, particularly younger children and children with special needs, learn better offline and hands-on. Therefore, schools have an obligation to maximize offline, hands-on learning – even if students are at home – by encouraging structured activities such as reading actual books, writing by hand, art, movement, outdoor play, real-world math projects, and nature exploration. During remote learning, schools must find ways to support families by providing physical books and supplies, in recognition of the fact that not all families are in a position to provide these things.
Avoid hasty purchases and decisions during the pandemic that may lead to the overuse of EdTech for many years to follow. Instead, invest in educators.
Privacy matters. Schools must understand and mitigate any privacy risks before assigning a platform or service to students. Schools should avoid services that do not clearly delineate who will have access to students’ sensitive data and for what purpose. Schools should also not assign platforms or apps that contain advertising, including upselling students and their families on premium versions, thereby exacerbating inequalities among students.
The impulse to embrace EdTech during the initial months of the pandemic was understandable; but the continued centering of education around EdTech is neither desirable nor inevitable. Parents and educators now know this to be true.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to EdTech: trusting educators to work together and employ their intelligence and creativity to design and deliver curricula that keep all students engaged while deepening their learning, even in a pandemic. Our children and our nation deserve nothing less than safe schools and low-tech, child-centered, educator-driven learning.
You can find a list of signatories below:
SIGNATORIES
Organizations
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
The Alliance for Early Childhood
Badass Teachers Association
Boston Teachers Union
Center for Digital Democracy
Center for Humane Technology
Class Size Matters
Collegiate Coaching Services
Defending the Early Years
DurableHuman.com
Everyschool
Illinois Families for Public Schools
Live Above the Noise Podcast
Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health: Birth to Six, Inc.
Massachusetts Teachers Association
MI Ed Justice
Nature Club Kids
Network for Public Education
New Mexico Pediatric Society
NoAppForLife.com
NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)
Obligation, Inc.
The Opt Out Florida Network
Parent Coaching Institute
Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, MD
ParentsTogether
Peace Educators Allied for Children Everywhere (PEACE)
Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education
Roots & Sky Nature School
ScreenStrong
Southern Early Childhood Association
Turning Life On
United Church of Christ, OC Inc.
Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN)
Washington Nature Preschool Association (WaNPA)
Individuals
Affiliations are for identification purposes only.
Matthew J. Bach, President, Andover Education Association
Nancy E. Bailey, Ph.D., @nancyebailey.com
Marsha Basloe, President, Child Care Services Association
Criscillia Benford, Ph.D., media theorist and co-author of “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust”; member, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Board; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, College of Education, Arizona State University; author, The Manufactured Crisis (with B. Biddle); 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools (with G. Glass)
Faith Boninger, Ph.D., National Education Policy Center, School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder
Laura Bowman, Child and Public Schools Advocate
Cynthia Boyd, M.D., M.P.H
Carol Burris, Ed.D., executive director, the Network for Public Education
Angela J. Campbell, Chairman of the Board of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and Professor Emeritus, Georgetown Law
Patricia Cantor, Ed.D., Plymouth State University; co-author, Techwise Infant/Toddler Teachers: Making Sense of Screen Media for Children Under 3; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Ed.D., Professor Emerita, Lesley University; co-founder, Defending the Early Years
Connie Casha, M.Ed., Early Childhood Specialist, Tennessee
Emily Cherkin, founder, The Screentime Consultant
Erika Christakis, M.P.H., M.Ed., early childhood educator and author, The Importance of Being Little
Joe Clement, co-author, Screen Schooled
Lisa Cline, Chair, Montgomery County Council of PTAs Safe Technology Committee
Mary Cornish, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Plymouth State University
Larry Cuban, Emeritus Professor of Education, Stanford University
Tracy Cutchlow, author, Zero to Five: 70 Essential Parenting Tips Based on Science; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Libby Doggett, Ph.D., former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy and Early Learning, US Dept of Education
Lori Dorfman, Dr.P.H., Director, Berkeley Media Studies Group and Associate Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Diane Dreher, Ph.D., Professor of English, Santa Clara University; author, Your Personal Renaissance
Eleanor Duckworth, Professor Emerita, Harvard Graduate School of Education; author, The Having of Wonderful Ideas, and other essays on teaching and learning
George Dyson, author of Analogia, Turing’s Cathedral, and Darwin Among the Machines
Cindy Eckard, student health activist and ScreensandKids.us blogger
Seth Evans, Chair, Screens in Schools Work Group, Children’s Screen Time Action Network
Jean Ciborowski Fahey, Ph.D., author, Make Time for Reading
Betsy Fox, Fox Educational Consulting
Richard Freed, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Wired Child; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Roberta M. Golinkoff, University of Delaware; author, Becoming Brilliant
Sheryl R. Gottwald, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, University of New Hampshire
Tristan Harris, co-founder and president, Center for Humane Technology
Mindy Holohan, M.A., CFLE, Family Science Faculty, Western Michigan University
Kay Johnson, M.P.H., Ed.M., President, Johnson Group Consulting, Inc.
Denisha Jones, Ph.D., J.D., Director of Art of Teaching, Sarah Lawrence College
Brett P. Kennedy, Psy.D.
Marla Kilfoyle, retired educator NY, NBCT
Alfie Kohn, author, The Schools Our Children Deserve
Catherine L’Ecuyer, Ph.D. in Education and Psychology; author, The Wonder Approach
Diane Levin, Ph.D., Applied Professor of Human Development, Boston University; author, Beyond Remote Control Childhood; founder, Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE)
Richard Levy, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science Emeritus
Susan Linn, Ed.D., Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author, The Case for Make Believe: Saving play in a commercialized world and Consuming Kids: The hostile takeover of childhood; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Dr. Robert MacDougall, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Curry College
Barbara Madeloni, former president, Massachusetts Teachers Association
Roxana Marachi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, San José State University; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Deborah Meier, retired teacher and founder of Central Park East schools in East Harlem and Mission Hill in Boston; author of The Power of Their Ideas
Matt Miles, co-author, Screen Schooled
Alex Molnar, Ph.D., Director, Commercialism in Education Research Unit, National Education Policy Center
Kathryn C. Montgomery Ph.D., Professor Emerita, School of Communication, American University
Daniel M. Mulcare, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Political Science, Salem State University
Dipesh Navsaria, M.P.H., M.S.L.I.S., M.D.; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health; member, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Board
Susan Ochshorn, founder, ECE PolicyWorks; author, Squandering America’s Future
Meghan Owenz, Ph.D., Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State University
Rae Pica, author, What If We Taught the Way Children Learn?
Jenny Radesky, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School
Dr. Anthony Rao, psychologist; author, The Power of Agency & The Way of Boys
Diane Ravitch, Ph.D., NYU
Kimberly Redigan, M.A., high school teacher; nonviolence trainer; blogger, Write Time for Peace
Thomas Robinson, M.D., M.P.H., Irving Schulman, MD Endowed Professor in Child Health, Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine, Stanford University; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Douglas Rushkoff, Ph.D., Professor of Media Studies, CUNY/Queens; author, Team Human
Holly Seplocha, Ed.D., Professor of Early Childhood Education, William Paterson University
Brooke Shannon, founder and Executive Director of Wait Until 8th
Tiffany Shlain, author of 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week; founder, The Webby Awards; director, Let it Ripple Film Studio; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Craig Slatin, Sc.D., M.P.H., Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell
William Softky, Ph.D., Neuro/Data/Physical/Computational Scientist; co-author, “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust”
Dr. Mari Swingle, Ph.D. Psych, M.A. Psych, M.A. Education, Clinical Researcher, Practicing Clinician/Psyhchoneurophysiology; author of i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing Our Brains, Our Behavior, and the Evolution of Our Species
Jim Taylor, Ph.D., author, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World
Sherry Turkle, Ph.D., Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, MIT; author, Reclaiming Conversation; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board
Kevin Welner, Ph.D., Professor of Education, University of Colorado Boulder; Director, National Education Policy Center
Meck Pre-K will reopen its doors for in-person instruction beginning on September 1 despite community COVID infection rates that are keeping all K-12 Charlotte Mecklenburg schools closed for the foreseeable future.
In announcing the move, Meck Pre-K said the decision had been made “after extensive discussions with officials from Mecklenburg County, the NC Division of Public Health and the NCDHHS.”
It wasn’t made after discussions with Mecklenburg County Commissioners, though. Rather, this was a unilateral decision by County Manager Dena Diorio.
Diorio also moved unilaterally to drop the income cap which previously ensured the program would serve Mecklenburg County’s neediest children.
Meck Pre-K’s announcement says it “distributed surveys to families, teachers, and providers to gather feedback on the coming school year,” and that “across all groups, the majority of respondents expressed a desire for children to return to the classroom even in light of the ongoing public health situation.”
The announcement doesn’t mention the fact that only 11% of the teachers surveyed said they preferred to return to in-person instruction. 74% said remote would be a better option and 16% were neutral.
There is no question that virtual instruction pales in comparison to an in-person education, especially for our youngest students.
But whether or not it’s prudent to do that at a time when Mecklenburg County’s percent positive COVID test rate is hovering around 9% deserves transparent and robust discussion by our community and elected officials.
At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Union County Board of Education, local educators showed up to make the case that reopening for in-person instruction is too risky given the county’s high COVID infection rates.
Their comments fell on deaf ears.
Union County’s percent positive test rate is hovering around 10%, which is double the CDC Director’s recommended level for districts to consider opening for students.
Pam Carlton, president of Union County Association of Educators (UCAE), rose to present survey data she and her colleagues collected on employee comfort level with returning to in-person instruction. Ms. Carlton was cut off before she could finish–despite board policy which allows representatives of groups extended speaking time.
The data UCAE collected shows that more than 83% of Union County Public Schools employees would prefer opening schools in Plan C, fully remote instruction.
Of survey respondents, only 8.6% said they were comfortable with Union County’s current return to work plan.
Local educators Sophia Stephenson and Brittany Gendron also spoke on behalf of educators who are concerned about their own safety and that of their students.
Stephenson referred to the current plan as “Russian roulette.” Gendron told the board she was prepared during lockdowns to take a bullet for her students and that “COVID is a bullet we can see coming. It’s already here.”
Board chair Melissa Merrell and her colleagues were unmoved by the comments and showed no sign of budging on the district’s plan to open to students on August 17. Merrell noted that “it was a decision handed down by the governor for Plan B” but did not mention that Governor Cooper’s approach allows for communities hit hard by COVID to open in Plan C.
As Union County’s board meeting ended, Brittany Gendron was overcome with emotion and broke down, saying “83 percent of staff want Plan C. You won’t even consider it?”
It was an emotional end for the Union County School Board meeting.
After a few comments from board members addressing the concerns some UCPS employees have about returning to work due to COVID-19, this employee broke down in tears, pleading with the board to consider Plan C. pic.twitter.com/bLmskzXOaJ
As North Carolina’s schools prepare to begin a year that will be anything but standard, Department of Public Instruction (DPI) staff will propose at Wednesday’s meeting of the State Board of Education that school districts be able to administer in-person standardized testing, even in cases where the district is operating in Plan C due to dangerously high levels of community COVID spread.
DPI’s recommendation is that the State Board “approve for the 2020–21 school year that for the beginning-of-grade 3, the end-of-grade and the end-of-course assessments, remote learning students will participate at an on-site location as determined by the public school unit.”
The proposal is being presented for Action on First Reading, with DPI staff noting that it would be “beneficial to approve prior to the beginning of the 2020–21 school year.”
The recommendation does say that districts may elect to delay testing until students return to school but emphasizes the importance of testing for informing stakeholders on student mastery of content and school performance.
You can view Wednesday’s presentation materials in their entirety below.
The meeting begins at 10 AM and will be livestreamed here.
