Wake School News Summary (2020-21)

Wake School News Summary (2020-21)

July 2021

The WCPSS community was saddened to learn of the death on July 5 of Dianne Pridgen, a former principal of Forestville Road ES and an interim principal at other district schools, including Rogers Lane ES. Pridgen also led a non-profit educational organization, the K-12 Education Alliance of Eastern Wake County, which sought to strengthen eastern Wake’s schools and their ties to their local communities.

The district announced on July 6 that WCPSS Athletic Director Deran Coe had received the NC Athletic Directors’ Association (NCADA) Citation of Merit Award for 2020 in recognition of his work to support Wake County athletics during the pandemic.

Wake’s multi-track, year-round schools had their first day of the 2021-22 school year on July 10 for Tracks 1, 2, and 3. With so many educators having the opportunity for a free COVID-19 vaccination starting in March, many were optimistic about starting a (mostly) normal school year. A few students remained in the Virtual Academy for the first semester, and the schools were still operating under certain restrictions (social distancing, staggered lunch, no visitors allowed). The district was battling an across-the-board 10% staffing shortfall, which caused late buses and required principals to help serve in cafeterias. But the first weeks of the new year went smoothly on the whole.

Local fans had a lot to cheer about as the postponed 2020 Summer Olympic Games got underway in Tokyo. On July 28, Andrew Capobianco, a 2017 graduate of Holly Springs HS, and his teammate, Michael Hixon, won a silver medal in 3-meter synchronized springboard diving. The town of Holly Springs hosted a celebration in his honor on Aug. 5. (Their performance was pretty incredible, we have to say.)

 

June 2021

Megan Budway, a music teacher at Cedar Fork ES in Morrisville, competed in NBC’s “American Ninja Warriors” television competition. Her students and colleagues got to watch her compete on June 14 when her episode aired. She made it to the semis later in the summer. Objectively, Budway appears to be extraordinarily tough.

Summer programs got a big boost from the federal government as school systems all over the world struggled to combat pandemic “learning loss.” Gov. Cooper signed a new state law in early April that required all public school systems in the state to provide 150 hours or 30 days of summer learning opportunities to interested students at no charge to families. These school systems were expected to use federal coronavirus stimulus funding to pay teachers and other staff members to support these programs.

Locally, the district offered “Camp WCPSS” for students on the traditional calendar during the summer months. The programs emphasized social and emotional learning and focused on reading and math while still including a variety of subjects, such as science. The law required physical activity and enrichment, such as art or music. WCPSS sent some students who had just completed middle school to their new high schools for their camp experience as a way to get them acclimated and ready for high school. By mid-June, the News & Observer reported that 19,000 students were attending these academic “camps” at district schools. Instructors were offered $45/hour and a $1200 bonus if they worked for six weeks.

The district announced on June 17 that a team of students from Enloe MHS were among the five winning teams in an annual national contest, the Lenovo Scholar Mobile App Development Competition, for the fifth year in a row.  This year’s team, consisting of Lydia Owens and Lindsey Templeton, created an app to provide easier access to information about mental and sexual health for minority teens, named Destigmatizing Healthcare.

The NCHSAA girls’ wrestling championships were held the weekend of June 19, and Amy Williams of Millbrook MHS won her weight class (113 lbs).

Tragedy struck the Wakefield community on June 19 when Messiah Pitt, a rising senior and basketball player at Wakefield HS, was shot and killed as he was leaving a friend’s graduation party in Garner. Four young men were quickly arrested; two were charged with murder and two with being accessories after the fact. The basketball team and coach in particular expressed sadness and shock. Police did not think that Pitt was the intended target.

The pandemic pushed multiple sports past the end of the school year. On June 25 at the NCHSAA State Championships for Track and Field in Greensboro, Aaron Rovnak of Franklin Academy charter high school in Wake Forest set two state records and was named Most Outstanding Performer in the 1A Division.

And on June 26, Dillon Leacock of Millbrook MHS won the 300-meter Hurdles and was named the 4A Most Outstanding Performer of this year’s championship competition. With his help, Millbrook also won the team championship, which was a nice feather in the school’s cap after their boys’ basketball team won the state title in the fall. Millbrook track and field beat Mallard Creek HS of Charlotte with a score of 53 – 51. Winning the 4 X 800 Meter Relay provided a boost, with great times from Graham Aitken, Harrison Enyeart, Joshua Navarro and Matthew Rapp. And Caleb Stephens won the Triple Jump championship.

 

May 2021

Local football fans who watched the NFL draft might have gone to bed disappointed, but Sanderson HS graduate Alim McNeill was eventually picked up by the Detroit Lions in the third round (72nd) on May 1. When he went pro, McNeill had been playing for NC State for three years. In a fortunate coincidence, an alumnus of a neighboring high school was also drafted. Larry Rountree III, a graduate of Millbrook MHS, was drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers (198th in the 2021 NFL draft) after playing at the University of Missouri for four years. The two North Raleigh high schools are fierce rivals and are only four miles apart.

Fuquay-Varina resident Zandrea Eagle, an English teacher at Holly Springs HS, was selected by representatives of the Live with Kelly and Ryan television show as one of four finalists in the “Top Teacher Search” contest. The Holly Springs community was rooting for her to win the $10,000 prize, but she came up just short and was consoled by a television appearance on May 4. Eagle was the Holly Springs HS teacher of the year for 2019-20. Watch her here: https://kellyandryan.com/video/lives-top-teacher-search-finalist-zandrea-eagle/

Park Scholarship winners for the Class of 2025 were announced on May 5. Of the 40 winners—selected from 2200 applicants—three students from WCPSS district schools won these prestigious scholarships:

  • Pratik Bairoliya, Enloe MHS
  • Charlotte Byrd Fullbright, Broughton MHS
  • Syna Prem Sharma, Garner MHS

More info here: https://park.ncsu.edu/2021/05/05/class-2025/

On May 7, The Prudential announced that Michael Chen, a middle-school student at Triangle Math & Science Academy charter school in Cary, was the winner of one of their Spirit of Community Awards. These awards go to 10 of the most prolific youth volunteers in the nation. Chen used his 3D printer to make close to 600 mask fasteners to ensure a more comfortable fit for health care workers during the pandemic. More info here: https://spirit.prudential.com/honoree/2021/michael-chen

NCDPI announced on May 13 that Pratyush Seshadri of Cary, a senior at Raleigh Charter High School, had been named a Presidential Scholar, one of only 161 students in the nation to be selected for this honor. (Another 2021 winner from NC is from Cary: Nrithya P. Renganathan, of the NC School of Science and Math.) The rigorous selection process starts with the identification of top performers on the ACT and SAT in each state. Then the candidates who have been invited to apply are judged based on “academic achievement, personal characteristics, leadership and service activities,” and an essay. More info: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/about.html

Local musical theater programs proved that they still had some mojo, despite spending precious little time together in person during the school year. At the annual Triangle Rising Stars Virtual Showcase and Awards Show May 20, 11 of the 20 finalists competing for a chance to advance to the national-level Jimmy Awards were from district schools, and one finalist attended a Wake charter school. Heritage High School of Wake Forest was especially laden with talent:

Best Actress Finalists: Ansleigh Reid, Heritage HS; Hanna Richman, Raleigh Charter HS; Symoné Spencer, Enloe MHS; Trinity Turner, Heritage HS; Valentina Fernandez Escalona, Apex Friendship HS.

Best Actor Finalists: Christian Bartney, Millbrook MHS;  Jackson Donahoe, Heritage HS;  Ryan Gregory, Enloe MHS; Sawyer Bowers, Heritage HS; Tate Mahar, Holly Springs HS; Thomas Halik, Heritage HS; and Will Wakeford, Athens Drive MHS.

 

April 2021

US Lacrosse Magazine named Middle Creek HS in Cary the seventh-best high-school lacrosse program in the nation on Apr. 12. Their 12-1 season ended with a loss to the state champions, Cardinal Gibbons (ranked fourth by the magazine).

Davis Drive MS in Cary announced on Apr. 23 that their school counselors had been recognized as part of a model program. The national Recognized ASCA Model Program (RAMP) designation is based on assessments by the American School Counselor Association.

The national magazine Black Enterprise picked up the story of wonder twins Reagan and Ricardo Razon of Morrisville on Apr. 23 as they pondered their lengthy list of college acceptances and scholarship offers. The twins, who attended Cedar Fork ES, Carnage MMS, and Enloe MHS, were offered more than $1.536 million in merit scholarships and were accepted to Harvard, Yale, MIT, UPenn, Stanford, Rice, and Duke, among other universities. Reagan wound up selecting Duke, while Ricardo selected Harvard. Read more  about these talented scholars here: https://www.blackenterprise.com/twin-scholars-awarded-over-1-536-million-in-combined-merit-based-college-scholarships/

On Apr. 26, 2020 Broughton MHS graduate Peter Fountain became the first freshman to win the ACC men’s golf title in 15 years. He’s a student at UNC-Chapel Hill. Read an interview with him here.

On Apr. 30, USA Lacrosse announced that they had selected Tate Jones of Middle Creek HS and Coleman Kraske of Wakefield HS for their All-American honors. Benjamin Yu of Wakefield HS, Thatcher Fettig of Cary HS, and Tyler Stana of Leesville Road HS were all named to the USA Lacrosse All-Academic team. And Bradley Wheeler of Fuquay-Varina HS was named Coach of the Year for the Eastern region of North Carolina.

 

March 2021

Mar. 2 felt like another historic first when the Millbrook MHS boys’ basketball team and the Garner MHS girls’ basketball team each won their regional final–sending both teams to the state championship game–within half an hour of each other. It was only Millbrook’s second trip to the finals in school history (the previous trip was in 2011). Garner’s would be the third trip in school history, but they hadn’t made it this far since 1979. At the very least, it was the only time anyone could remember when NC high-school basketball, a fall sport, included an element of March Madness.

The Millbrook victory against Lumberton included one overtime period and featured an exceptional performance by Silas Demary, Jr.: 29 points, 11 rebounds, and four steals. Garner had a bit less difficulty dispatching Ashley, despite the fact that they played a road game in Wilmington, while Millbrook played in Raleigh. The Garner girls remained undefeated. The Trojans’ star player, Jerni Kiaku, scored 36 points and made two late free throws to seal the victory.

In their battle for the state championship, Millbrook boys emerged victorious on Mar. 6, defeating Ardrey Kell in overtime 67-65. It was the school’s first state championship in boys’ basketball. Eric van der Heijden was named MVP of the championship game, and later in the month, he was named to the First Team All-District. Millbrook ended up ranked 36th nationally by Ball Is Life.

 

The district and local media announced on Mar. 9 that Barwell Road ES in Raleigh had the highest number of newly National Board Certified Teachers (NBCT)  in the nation for the 2020-21 school year, with 10 teachers completing the rigorous requirements. The district continued its 14-year streak of having the most certified teachers of any US school district.

Both sides in the long-running Leandro v. State of North Carolina court case submitted a Comprehensive Remedial Plan to Judge David Lee on Apr. 15. As explained in its introduction, the plan sought to summarize the actions yet to be taken as a result of the pandemic’s effects on the measures agreed to in a consent order of Sept. 11, 2020.

Brentwood MES in Raleigh had to do quite a bit of creative

Brentwood student displays his engineering skills. Photo tweeted by Melissa McKinley.

reshuffling to maintain social distancing, but they had their annual Engineering Week even so, Mar. 15-19. Students spent the week working through the design-build-test-redesign-rebuild-retest engineering cycle and reserved Friday for final testing of their creations, which included boats, catapults, buildings that can be moved without toppling, and structures that could stand up to the Big Bad Wolf.

On Mar. 23, Apex HS boys’ soccer lost in the 4A Eastern Regional Final to Cardinal Gibbons, ending their season just shy of a chance to win the state championship. (Gibbons ended up winning it on Mar. 27 by beating Myers Park HS of Charlotte.)

Middle Creek HS proudly announced on Mar. 25 that one of their students, KaLa Keaton, had been awarded a $20,000 scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholarship Foundation. Keaton was selected from a nationwide pool of 99,403 applicants.

The boys’ soccer team of Franklin Academy Charter School in Wake Forest made it to the final game of the 1A state playoffs, but the Patriots lost the championship match to Pine Lake Preparatory on Mar. 27.

On Mar. 28, the NC Young Playwrights’ Festival announced the winners, and three were from WCPSS:

Molly Huffman, from Carroll MMS (Winner); Amelia Wilder, from Enloe MHS (Winner); and Rudie Chambers and Ellie Schneider from Enloe MHS (Honorable Mention). The winners received monetary awards and were invited to participate in a showcase event Apr. 10.

 

February 2021

The last weekend in February saw county-sponsored vaccination clinics for Wake Co. educators. Over a thousand teachers and other school employees received their first dose of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. WakeMed worked with WCPSS to set up and staff clinics at Southeast Raleigh MHS and Knightdale MHS. The rollout of vaccine doses to people whose age and occupation placed them in Group 3 was carried out by counties in stages.

As of Feb. 24, 11,000 school personnel were still waiting for an email invitation to make an appointment for their first-round vaccination. However, the rollout was proceeding smoothly and ramping up rapidly, starting on Feb. 24. CBS17 reported that approximately 1,250 district employees were vaccinated on Feb. 27.

On Feb. 26, the varsity football team of Green Level HS won the school’s first ever game, 16 – 0, against Riverside HS of Durham. The Saturday matchup in chilly winter weather was another sign that the 2020-21 school year was like no other. At that point, no fewer than 11 high school sports seasons were in progress simultaneously, another first.

On Feb. 26, the governor’s plan to lift some of the strictest restrictions associated with pandemic safety precautions went into effect. Restaurants, gyms, and stores became legally able to remain open after 10 p.m. Bars, movie theaters and smaller venues could operate at 30% of their official capacity, while other venues, such as gyms, restaurants, museums, and amusement parks, were allowed to operate at 50% of capacity. District high-school students had finally returned to campus after the President’s Day holiday (Feb. 15). The countywide test positivity rate had declined to 5.3% over 14 days.

The county had ramped up capacity enough to be able to vaccinate close to 20,000 residents per week. Safety guidelines in Wake were more strict than in other areas of the state because the district wanted more time to plan for the increases in fan attendance at sporting events that had been legalized by the General Assembly.

On Feb. 21, Wakefield HS announced that their boys’ basketball team was opting out of the playoffs, which started later that same week.

At the statewide Poetry Out Loud contest on Feb. 20, Meziah Smith of Knightdale MHS was named State Champion of the High School division. The annual competition is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

By winning their games on Feb. 19, both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams of Millbrook MHS won their conference championships. The Garner MHS girls’ basketball team completed an undefeated season that same day.

On Feb. 19, the NCHSAA released the final version of their proposed conference realignment plan that would run from fall 2021 through the end of 2025. Final appeals were heard on Feb. 17. The plan still had to be approved by the NCHSAA Board of Directors, which was planning to meet in March.

The NC Education Lottery announced on Feb. 18 that a WCPSS bus driver, Katrice Evans, had purchased a winning ticket worth more than $127,000. She made her winning purchase in Angier.

In his weekly press conference on Feb. 18, Governor Roy Cooper announced that 96% of NC K-12 students had an option for in-person learning after nearly a year of virtual schooling. When the last group of 100% remote learners in Wake County started to return to high school campuses, WRAL and CBS17 ran stories on Feb. 17 marking the occasion.

The district announced on Feb. 11 that Jennifer Pride, a language-arts teacher at Heritage MS in Wake Forest, had been selected as the WCPSS Teacher of the Year. The typical gala celebration was changed to a virtual ceremony, but her selection was met with enthusiastic approval on social media.

Wakefield HS assistant football coach Marcus Smith passed away on Feb. 8. He had previously served as Head Football Coach at Rolesville MS; fans of both programs expressed shock and grief at the news.

Vanessa Barnes, Dean of Students at Millbrook MHS, was selected as a finalist for the American School Counselors Association’s School Counselor of the Year Award for 2021. Her selection was announced on Feb. 5.

Black History Month was observed without the fun in-person festivals and concerts that typified it in previous years. Some important conversations took place surrounding the teaching of Black history in North Carolina’s schools, however. As the state Board of Education debated whether to adopt new, more inclusive standards for Social Studies, local students urged the state’s educators to do more. A few parents expressed concerns about the revisions to the Social Studies standards.

 

January 2021

The groundswell of support for a return to in-person learning received a new impetus as soon as the NC General Assembly reconvened during the second half of the month. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger announced on Jan. 28 that several Republican Senators were working on a bill to require all schools to reopen and also to include an option for remote learners.

As of the Jan. 28 deadline, magnet-school applications were down by 10% overall from the previous year, and early-college programs saw a whopping 28% drop in applications. The biggest drop in applications was for elementary-school slots, which saw an 11% decrease.

The volleyball team at East Wake Academy, a charter school in Zebulon, won the school’s first state championship in Division 1A on Jan. 23 by defeating Mountain Island Charter of Mount Holly. State volleyball championship matches were played at Green Level HS in Cary, which received high praise from local sports commentators for the quality of the organization, volunteers, and facilities. All players were required to wear masks during play.

COVID-19 took the life of Apex Friendship HS Media Assistant Amy Desormeaux on Jan. 22.  She did not contract the virus at the school and had not been physically present on the campus since schools were closed the previous March.

ABC11 ran a story on Jan. 22 about student volunteers with an interest in STEM who were assisting with a county-sponsored COVID testing site close to their neighborhood.

Jordon and LeVonte Adams of Raleigh

Screen capture from Good Morning America broadcast of 29 Jan., 2021

Three students from Broughton MHS, Jordon and LeVonte Adams and Shanya Woodard, were interviewed. Joel Brown reported that the students not only promoted the testing site by posting flyers and assisted with test-kit distribution and crowd control, but also helped out in the testing lab, processing samples. Remote learning at Broughton enabled them to work as many as 6 days each week. A followup story on Jan. 29 then detailed how community partners stepped in to help after learning that the Adams brothers were about to become homeless and had been living with their family in a hotel for the past year. The nonprofits Justice Served and the Green Chair Project worked with Vero Diagnostics to provide a furnished home for the family with all housing expenses paid for one year. See the video clip from Good Morning America here.

At their regular meeting on Jan. 14, the Wake BoE voted not to bring all K-12 students back to school campuses until mid-February, citing concerns about a shortage of substitute teachers, the possibility of contributing to community spread, and the high test-positivity rate in the county at that time. Middle-school sports were on hold until the return to campus, but high-school sports were allowed to continue with practices and competition.

Educator Eloise Hilliard of Clayton

Eloise Hilliard. Photo from Team WCPSS (Facebook).

 

Longtime educator Eloise Hilliard died on Jan. 12 at age 90. A resident of Clayton, she taught at Needham Broughton HS and most recently at Mary E. Philips HS in Raleigh.

The district announced the 16 finalists for the annual Diane Kent-Parker First-Year Teacher Award on Jan. 8. View the full list of finalists here: https://www.facebook.com/WCPSSTeam/posts/2888127271468452

On Jan. 6, the district announced a new recruitment effort to hire additional substitute teachers. In a weekly bulletin, WCPSS noted that in the final weeks before the December holidays, “there was a shortage of as many as 200 substitute teachers on any given day.” The school board approved a pay raise for substitute teachers at their January 5 meeting.

 

 

December 2020

Apex HS created a scholarship fund to memorialize Coach Kevin Todd, who passed away in September. They announced on Dec. 19 that $1,000 scholarships in Coach Todd’s name would go annually to one female and one male Apex HS student-athlete.

Wake county experienced a similar surge in cases to that seen in almost every NC county during the fall semester. As the winter break began on Dec. 18, the district reported 128 new cases over the previous seven days, with a total of 432 cases since in-person learning resumed in October.

At a special Dec. 14 meeting, the Wake BoE voted to pause in-person classes from the end of the winter break until Jan. 20. School administrators were feeling overwhelmed by the difficulties of staffing schools with so many educators in quarantine. Other large school systems, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, approved similar plans. The week before the vote was held, Wake County reported 3,389 new cases of the coronavirus. Enrollment in the WCPSS Virtual Academy was 85,000 at that time.

The NCHSAA announced a more compact playoff schedule for high school football on Dec. 14. The season would also be shorter, with the first games taking place the last weekend in February. The rules for playoff eligibility were significantly altered: seedings were not used. Instead, two factors were considered:

  • Final standing within the team’s conference
  • The team’s winning percentage within its conference

Playoffs were also limited to 32 teams rather than the usual 64, with one fewer round in the playoff schedule. Larger conferences received more than one automatic playoff bid, with those of 9 schools or more receiving three bids. Seeding would be done randomly after the 16 qualifiers in each region were determined.

 

November 2020

November’s news cycle was dominated by the local, state, and federal elections. A proliferation of mail-in ballots and multiple close races meant that final results were not announced until more than a week after election day, Nov. 3. The Wake Board of Commissioners returned five incumbents and elected two new commissioners. Running for the post of Wake County Soil & Water Conservation against three other candidates, Scott Lassiter, an assistant principal at Connections Academy in Raleigh and former AP at Durant Road MS, was elected.

The Wake BoE returned eight incumbents in this election cycle. On election night, Heather Scott, Monika Johnson-Hostler, Chris Heagarty, Lindsay Mahaffey, and Jim Martin had a large enough margin to win their races outright. However, Bill Fletcher lost to Karen Carter in District 9, which represents Cary and parts of southern Wake. Running unopposed were chairman Keith Sutton, vice chairwoman Roxie Cash, and Christine Kushner.

As announced in October, the NCHSAA allowed high-school sports teams to resume practices on a heavily revised, compressed schedule starting Nov. 4. Wake later announced that fall sports would be played without spectators. HSOT posted a good summary of the guidelines that each team had to follow for practices and competition.

On Nov. 5, the district announced that high-school student clubs would be allowed to resume on-campus meetings after school. They provided guidelines that would adhere to state-mandated health requirements but left specific guidance to individual schools. Middle school arts programs could start meeting on campus after school starting Nov. 9, and the district ordered some protective equipment for musicians to reduce infections from music rehearsals; singing and playing wind instruments were both understood to be risky activities that released viruses into the air.

With student athletes back on campus, Knightdale HS drew on this talent pool when they needed to record videos to explain safety requirements and procedures for returning students in January:

On Nov. 9, middle-school students who were not enrolled in the Wake Virtual Academy returned to school campuses for the first time since March. With the combination of over half the district’s students enrolled in the Virtual Academy and therefore attending all classes remotely until at least the spring semester and a division of each school’s student body into three cohorts, only a dozen or fewer students were physically present in a typical classroom at the same time. Under the district’s Plan B, each cohort would follow a slightly different combination of attending school remotely for two weeks, then returning to campus physically for one week until further notice. Masks were required, with the threat of suspension for noncompliance.

The return to campus meant that the renamed and heavily renovated Neuse River Middle School (formerly East Wake Middle School) finally got to hold their ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The school board met on Nov. 9, and among other topics, they discussed plans for a possible return to campus for all elementary students (with the exception of Virtual Academy students) in January or later in the spring semester. Middle and high schools would still adhere to Plan B: groups of students could be physically present on campus for one week out of every three.

Also on Nov. 9, the district announced that David Farabee of North Wake College and Career Academy and Naomi Vining of Middle Creek HS received the Excellence in HS Science Teaching Award from the American Chemical Society. The criteria for the award included excellence in teaching, extracurricular work in chemistry, such as participation in science fairs, and a proven record of remaining current in the field. The district also announced that Lori Craven of Panther Creek HS received the North Carolina Science Teachers’ Association (NCSTA) Outstanding High School Science Educator Award for Region 3. The award recognizes “creativity in use of science teaching materials”; innovation; and efforts to develop “programs for the improvement of science instruction.”

Mariya Hunter, a sixth-grader at East Garner MS, wrote and published a book, Lucile and the Big Race, and Area Superintendent James Overman tweeted that he had purchased copies for WCPSS schools in his area.

Book cover art for Lucile and the Big Race

The book is available on Amazon.com and from multiple other major retailers, including Walmart and Barnes and Noble.

Testing and safety are perennial concerns, especially at the high-school level, but the pandemic intensified these concerns. The district and BoE were already aware that students’ first-quarter grades were lower than usual. But both educators and families became more aware of a growing concern this month: the lack of waivers on state-mandated standardized testing. Many WCPSS high schools are on the “block” schedule, which means that students complete a full year’s worth of work for four classes each semester. As a result, their final exams and standardized End-of-Course (EoC) tests were scheduled to take place in mid-January. Although the district had plans in place to administer these exams to smaller groups of students who would be spaced a good distance apart from each other, parents of students enrolled in Wake’s Virtual Academy were very unhappy to hear that the tests could not be administered remotely under current state law. A group named NC Families for School Testing Reform started circulating an online petition on Nov. 17 requesting that the Governor and state legislature take action to either make it easier for students to opt out of the tests entirely (by removing the requirement that each test be worth 20% of the student’s final grade), to allow students to take them from home, or to waive this accountability measure for a second straight year. The looming problem created extra stress for teachers, whose job performance is rated partly based on their students’ standardized test scores.

The state legislature had the authority to cancel or modify plans for in-person standardized testing, but the district found that it had a few tools at its disposal as well. Students for whose families the in-person testing posed an unacceptable risk were in some cases eligible for the district’s built-in makeup days, or they might have qualified for a medical exemption, which in a normal year is subject to stringent criteria. More about the district’s dilemma and the options they were considering is in this News & Observer article.

 

October 2020

The big news in October was the return to campus for many students in grades pre-K-3 and many special-ed students on Oct. 26. And although all high-school students in the district would remain in remote learning until at least January 2021, their teachers had to start teaching them from campus starting on Oct. 19 unless they had applied for and been granted an accommodation for health reasons. The district pointed out that a few students would be on campus for part of the day, as high-school athletes were allowed to resume practices under stringent guidelines from the state DHHS starting Oct. 1.

The month began with a protest arguing that students needed to return to school physically as soon as possible. The News & Observer reported that over 100 protesters, many without masks, held a rally at the WCPSS headquarters in Cary on Oct. 1, urging the immediate adoption of Plan A for high-school students.

A few teachers and their families had the opposite message the following Tuesday. They staged a socially-distanced protest at the BoE’s monthly meeting on Oct. 6. These protesters felt that a return to in-person instruction, which the board had already approved for K-5, was unsafe and premature, considering recent infection rates in the county. The board itself was meeting in person for the first time since March.

On Oct. 7, the North Carolina Soccer Coaches Association (NCSCA) announced that they had inducted Coach Paul Dinkenor, boys’ and girls’ soccer coach at Leesville Road HS, into their Hall of Fame. They provided a nice bio of Coach Dink, who has been coaching soccer in NC since 1987 and has been named State Coach of the Year three times: https://www.ncsca.org/news_article/show/1126621

At their monthly three-day meeting, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest on Oct. 8 attempted to force the state BoE to vote on a “substitute” motion to allow all schools statewide to open for in-person instruction. His motion was turned away and never voted on, but it would have instructed the BoE to work closely with the state DHHS and NC DPI to reopen schools for face-to-face instruction. Forest maintained that the board would have had the authority to override the governor’s executive orders limiting activities statewide during the pandemic. At that time, the state was tracking 171 COVID-19 cases associated with clusters reported at K-12 schools, including private schools. At the time, Forest was a candidate for Governor. Read more about this board meeting at EdNC.

September 2020

At their Sept. 1 meeting, the Wake BoE discussed options for the PSAT standardized test. All test administration dates that the College Board had publicized would occur while WCPSS students were still in remote learning. Each year, the district pays $17.00 per student for 11th graders whose GPA is in the top 10% to take the PSAT/NMSQT exam if desired. The district is hoping to offer the exams in winter 2021.

When the state Board of Education met on Sept. 2, they reminded the public that the annual school accountability reports that are normally published in September each year would not be available this year because accountability measures, including statewide standardized testing, were waived for the 2019-20 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (This means that the much-debated “school report cards” will remain unchanged from last year.)

The only report that was not waived was the 2019-2020 Cohort Graduation Rate. In NC, the cohort graduation rate is defined as the percentage of students within each “graduating class,” or cohort, who earn a high school diploma within four years. Because each class starts as a group of 9th-grade students, cohorts can grow or decrease as students transfer in or move away. For the 2019-20 school year, NC public schools reported a cohort graduation rate of 87.6 percent, an improvement of 1.1 percent from 2018-2019. Wake County public schools reported a graduation rate of 90.8%, up from 89.9% the previous year.

The NCHSAA modified the guidelines that affect all high-school sports in the state on Sept. 8. The association has issued regular responses to the pandemic and related situations and meets regularly to revisit the rules under which all high-school athletes must practice and play. Masks were required “at all times” with the exception of “Student-athletes actively involved in aerobic activity.” The updated guidance is here: https://www.nchsaa.org/2020-2021-nchsaa-modified-sports-manual

On Sept. 11, the Durham Herald-Sun reported that construction of a new, high-tech building to house Exploris Charter School had been put on hold before ground-breaking could take place.  Plans for the building were ambitious and included 10 stories that would accommodate office space and all of Exploris’s K-8 student body, which is currently split between two campuses near downtown Raleigh. The developers claim that they could not secure enough financing to begin the estimated $65 million project, while the board of Exploris claims that they were trying to backpedal on several aspects of the agreement that affected the school. The “energy-positive” green building would have been located behind the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh.

National Arts in Education Week (Sept. 13-19) looked very, very different this year. The pandemic threw a wrench into schools’ plans to observe the week as they usually did, with band and choral mini-concerts and presentations from local artists; however, Arts North Carolina produced a slick video that included a cameo from at least one WCPSS school (Sanderson HS in Raleigh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yivjTelW3Q&feature=youtu.be

On Sept. 15, the Wake BoE announced that student athletes in two sports could begin limited, regular workouts on school property starting Oct. 1. The plan adhered to schedules set by the NCHSAA, which determined that the regular season for those sports would begin Nov. 4. They further announced that later in October, swimming and diving, basketball, and cheerleading could start regular workouts. Lacrosse and boys’ soccer could start workouts on Nov. 9, with football starting Nov. 30. All other sports would have their seasons in the spring and would commence workouts in January 2021. All restarts of school sports activities would come with mandatory health screenings, and teams would be split into smaller “pods” to enable distancing.

At their Sept. 15 regular meeting, the Wake BoE heard a presentation from the ABC Science Collaborative. The Collaborative, a team of scientists from Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, had recently received the board’s approval to join an effort to reopen schools safely and gather data about coronavirus transmission. Under an agreement that the district signed with Duke, a “COVID Scientific Analysis Board” would provide data and guidance to help the district respond to the pandemic. The agreement included the statement that “At no time will Duke direct the institutional functions of WCPSS, and WCPSS remains solely responsible for all WCPSS official functions and decision-making.” Scientists at Duke agreed to perform and synthesize current research and summarize it “to enable WCPSS to make informed decisions regarding school reopening plans.” In return, they received anonymized student data that they could use in their own COVID-19 research. You can view the slides from the presentation here.

Although WCPSS ceded the statewide Wells Fargo Cup to Cardinal Gibbons again this year—a title that until recently was habitually garnered by Green Hope—several local teams won individual Wells Fargo Conference cups, scoring the most points in the annual competition within their own conference:

  • Northern 4A Conference – Heritage HS claimed a conference cup title with seven girls’ or boy’s conference championships in a shortened athletic year.
  • South Wake 4A Conference – Apex Friendship HS picked up the young school’s first conference cup championship.
  • Triangle 8 4A Conference – Green Hope HS nabbed the top spot in the conference cup race for 2019-2020, also on the strength of championships in seven sports.

Apex HS and the wider WCPSS community experienced a wrenching loss Sept. 23 when beloved boys’ and girls’ soccer coach and teacher Kevin Todd died suddenly on campus. Shocked and saddened students and friends created a makeshift memorial within hours of hearing the news, leaving flowers, notes, and soccer memorabilia near the entrance to the school’s stadium. A planned event for seniors was postponed.


That same day, Cary HS students and alumni heard that longtime supporter Guy Mendenhall (Cary HS Class of 1954) had died on Sept. 21. Mendenhall taught and coached basketball at Enloe HS from 1965 to 1977 before serving at his alma mater as Athletic Director until he retired in 1993. In retirement, he attended many games and sponsored a pizza dinner for all student athletic training assistants each year, earning many friends among the fans and boosters of Imp athletics. Read his obituary here: https://www.montlawn.com/obituary/walter-mendenhall-jr

August 2020

The school year began two weeks earlier than usual for most students in the district, and it began online for all students in the district. Early-college high schools began the year on Aug. 3; modified-calendar schools began on Aug. 13; and traditional-calendar schools began on Aug. 17. (The decision to move all single-track year-round schools to the traditional calendar for at least the first few weeks represented a change that no one wanted. However, state laws, amended in April in response to the pandemic, made it impossible to complete a full school year by late June of 2021 without this change. Multi-track year-round schools were switched to Track 4, which is similar to the traditional calendar and, for this school year, had the same start date.)

On Aug. 5, WakeEdPartnership launched a new series of programs to assist families and students with remote learning: WakeFast, or Wake Families and Schools Together. Various partner organizations agreed to offer onsite, socially distanced learning assistance during the school day for parents needing supervision for their children in grades K – 6. The program offered daytime meals, physical activity, computing resources, and internet connectivity at highly affordable rates. Keith Poston, President of WakeEd Partnership, said that the goal was “both to facilitate learning for students and to support our families and the local economy that rely on parents working. Remote learning is a community-wide challenge and it requires a broad community-based solution.” The program was developed in partnership with the school district and well-established providers of programs for children, including the YMCA, Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, and the City of Raleigh Parks and Rec division.

Beginning the year with 100% remote instruction was a relatively new plan, adopted at the July 21 meeting of the BoE. The district referred to it as “Plan B Transition,” acknowledging that the goal was still to reopen schools under Plan B. (More about Plan B here: http://wakeednews.com/wake-school-news-archive-2019-20/).

The district rolled out a new website named BACK TO SCHOOL 2020-21 to help families to navigate all these changes: https://www.wcpss.net/Page/33111

District leadership made it clear to both teachers and families that the first two weeks were meant to be devoted to community-building activities and logistics, such as introductions and the distribution of devices and materials. Most schools devoted a substantial amount of time to these activities.

All sports and other after-school activities were suspended throughout the summer and past the start of the school year. The NC High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA), the governing body for high school athletics in the state, met in July and decided to postpone the start of fall sports, including tryouts, practices, workouts, and games until Sept. 1. However, on Aug. 6, the association again paused the resumption of sports, citing the governor’s extension of Phase Two of the state’s reopening plan until at least Sept. 11. (Under Phase 2 restrictions, gatherings were limited to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors, making practice difficult and games with spectators impossible.)

At their Aug. 12 meeting, NCHSAA commissioners voted to adopt a new calendar that postponed high school football from fall 2020 to Feb. 2021. The unprecedented calendar necessarily affected every sport, with most sports moved to the spring. The only fall sports would be cross country, volleyball, and swimming. Basketball would start in December. All sports’ seasons would be abbreviated, but the NCHSAA said that playoffs were still planned. Read more here: https://www.highschoolot.com/nchsaa-moves-football-to-february-shortens-seasons-for-all-sports-due-to-pandemic/19231667/

The pain was spread evenly across the county as NC State University moved all classes to virtual on Aug. 24 and then, within the same week, closed all dormitories in response to multiple outbreaks of COVID-19 after classes began Aug. 10. That same week, Wake County HHS was reporting 14,745 cumulative cases of and 199 deaths from the coronavirus.

On Aug. 26, NCHSAA Commissioner Que Tucker instructed all member schools that “Unlike normal starts to the year, ALL sports are in the off season and are governed by … skill development guidelines”. The guidelines emphasized that “taking part in off-season skill development” is not mandatory and reminded coaches that the rules do not allow them to make these sessions mandatory. “Skills development” can include anything from weight training to review of video. Student athletes are always limited to 90 minutes of skills development per day.