GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — After almost a full year since schools shut down because of COVID-19, older students in Guilford county are headed back to class in a matter of weeks.
The new reentry plan was approved by the Board of Education Tuesday night.
The plan brings grades 6-12 face-to-face-in some capacity.
There are a lot of questions out there. One of them being, why did GCS prioritize seniors going back ahead of some lower grades?
Chief Academic Officer Dr. Whitney Oakley addressed this.
"Our seniors are really close to graduation, they have important testing," Dr. Oakley explained. "It's already February and June will be here really soon so we wanted to make sure we prioritized those seniors who are getting ready to go off to college, career, enlistment etc."
Parents have long been divided on in-person versus remote learning. Some parents wish students could go back five days a week instead of two. Oakley said some in-person instruction is better than none.
"We have to remember we lost a large chunk of last year and we've done remote learning all the way up to this point and it's going to take years to recover."
Oakley said there will be a big tutoring push from the district.
"We're going to ramp that up this summer and fall, we're looking at summer academies."
The district doesn't have any plans to do rapid COVID-19 testing otherwise known as "surveillance testing" in schools.
"It's still just an ongoing conversation. Our board asked us to present what a plan could look like but we haven't been directed to execute a rapid testing plan."