The Macon County Board of Education have decided to return closed schools to the schedules put in place at the beginning of the school year.
Franklin High School, Macon Middle School, Mountain View Intermediate School and Union Academy had all been shifted to fully online learning temporarily due to high numbers of quarantines that prevented the schools from adequately staffing classrooms.
However, Macon County Department of Public Health director Kathy McGaha said she had no reservations about these schools returning to part-time face-to-face instruction, noting that individuals had satisfied quarantine requirements and that the school system’s procedures for in-person education were all where they needed to be.
“I have no hesitation for [these schools] to come back,” McGaha said. “They’re doing a tremendous job wearing their masks and washing their hands.”
Disagreement on FHS
Board members agreed that Mountain View, Macon Middle and Union should return to their A Day/B Day format, but there was some disagreement about Franklin High. The high school briefly operated on a once-a-week model for in-person instruction to guarantee social distance, a strategy board member Stephanie McCall said wasn’t effective enough. McCall argued that students weren’t learning enough with only one in-person day per week due to a lack of accountability and that more space needed to be found to get them on track.
“I know some of these kids personally – they are not being educated,” McCall said. “I have teachers telling me that all of their kids are not coming to their classes. … I think Franklin High School absolutely needs to be back in school more than one day a week.”
However, the other board members felt that there isn’t enough space at the school and that the one-day per week approach was still the best they could do without violating orders passed down from the state government.
“We’re trying to do the absolute best that we can within the constraints of the governor’s executive orders,” board chairman Jim Breedlove said. “We have to account when we’re making decisions as far as class sizes and how we’re going to conduct ourselves in the school.”
The board voted unanimously to have Mountain View, Macon Middle and Union return to A Day/ B Day in-person learning. They voted for Franklin High to return to its once-per-week format by a margin of 4-1, with McCall voting against. These schools returned to in-person classes Monday, Sept. 14.
Superintendent Chris Baldwin reiterated that the school system is continuing to refine its approach to distance learning based on new laws from the state and feedback from students and their families as such information becomes available. He thanked the entire Macon County Schools community for their continued patience and support.
“Throughout this whole first weeks of school and the summer, we’ve had a tremendous amount of support from all of the folks involved,” Baldwin said. “Our teachers, our parents and our students have worked well together to meet these challenges that have been presented by the pandemic.”
The Board of Education will meet again on Monday, Sept. 28.
On Friday, Sept. 11, a positive case of COVID-19 was identified at Nantahala School, resulting in in-person instruction being suspended until at least Friday, Sept. 18 while the individual is quarantined and the health department conducts contact tracing.