Highlands to remain open under "Plan B"
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Students and parents are advised to read and respond to the COVID-19 checklist prior to entering Highlands School each day.
Macon County is hitting the reset button on in-person student instruction at four of its schools following action by the board of education on Monday night.
Superintendent Chris Baldwin informed the board that COVID-19 has hit the school system hard in the eight days since in-person classes began on Aug. 17.
“Right now, in quarantine, we have six students and one teacher at East Franklin Elementary, 16 students, one teacher and one substitute at MVI, 31 students and six teachers at Macon Middle and 49 students and 13 total staff members at Franklin High School, multiple members of the custodial staff at Highlands School, and 21 total cafeteria staff and two school nurses district wide,” Baldwin said. “Of course, those are not all confirmed positive cases, but the rules say that if you have been exposed to a positive person you must quarantine for 14 days.”
Baldwin added that there have been three confirmed positive cases at Franklin High School and one each at East Franklin, Mountain View Intermediate and Macon Middle School.
Baldwin noted that he had already made the decision to close Franklin High School to in-person instruction through Sept. 11. His recommendation to the board was to take further action and close Union Academy, Macon Middle School and Mountain View Intermediate to in-person instruction as well through Sept. 11.
“I think anyone who watches our meetings knows that having students in the schools every day is the preference of this board, and has been since day one,” board member Fred Goldsmith said. “But at the same time we have to follow the guidelines that are set forth and do what is in the best interest of student safety.”
Baldwin noted that the suspension of in-person instruction through Sept. 11 was necessary due to staffing shortages and a lack of substitute teachers and staff members to cover the schools with a high number of quarantined fulltime staff.
“I want to be clear, to this point we have not had a cluster (five or more) of cases at any one school,” Baldwin said. “What we have run into is staffing shortages as schools scramble to find substitutes for not only teachers, but other essential staff. Macon Middle, for example, learned about possible exposures over the weekend and they were trying to round up 12 substitutes on 24 hours notice – just to cover that one school.”
Board member Tommy Cabe asked about the elementary schools in the county, as well as Highlands School and Nantahala. Baldwin replied that he had spoken to the principals at each of those schools and they had requested that their buildings continue to be open for in-person instruction.
“What I propose is that we keep the elementary schools open the rest of the week and reevaluate on Friday,” Baldwin said. “As for Highlands, Nantahala and Macon Early College, right now those schools are okay in terms of staffing and their administrators are comfortable having students in the building. So I propose they continue with their current plan, knowing that those plans can change at any time.”
Highlands principal Brian Jetter sent out a notification to parents on Aug. 19 notifying them of a positive test among the custodial staff.
“In the present circumstances in which we live, I believe it is even more incumbent upon me to keep all of our Highlands School family factually informed,” Jetter said in a written statement. “With the re-opening of school, we knew we would experience a positive case of COVID-19 at some point. Today, we were notified that a member of our custodial team has tested positive. This individual has been in quarantine since last week and has not been on campus to expose students. As a precaution, for faculty and students at Highlands School, all of our custodial team has been sent home to quarantine and be tested according to contact tracing protocols.”
The Highlands-Cashiers Health Foundation announced on Monday that it will cover the cost of a voluntary weekly COVID-19 testing program for students and staff at Highlands School, Blue Ridge Early College and Summit Charter School beginning in mid-September.
Closing the four schools in Franklin through Sept. 11 will allow currently quarantined staff members to be through their respective quarantines and back in class. Because the week of Sept. 7-11 was already a built-in “remote learning week,” the suspension of in-person classes will have minimal impact on student progress, according to Baldwin.
“We all realize that the online remote learning is not the same as having an instructor in a classroom, it’s just not,” Baldwin said. “But right now it’s the right thing to do and it’s necessary based on the number of staff we currently have out.”
Cabe acknowledged that no matter what format the school board chooses for the rest of the year, there will be criticism from some members of the public. The schools are currently operating under the state of North Carolina’s “Plan B,” which offers a mix of in-person and remote instruction. At any time the school board can choose to go to “Plan C,” which is all remote learning.
“Some folks are going to say, ‘Why didn’t you all just open in Plan C from the beginning,’” Cabe said. “Even if we would have gone with Plan C, we still would have distributed the Ipads and other devices and allowed students to be on campus at some point. We still may have had exposures.”
A motion to approve Baldwin’s proposal and close Franklin High School, Macon Middle School, Union Academy and Mountain View Intermediate to in-person instruction and review the rest of the schools on Friday, Aug. 28 passed unanimously.