In the spring of 2020, Macon County Schools had to shut down all in-person classes and learn how to educate children at home on the fly. In the spring of 2021, everyone hopes that safe and effective vaccines will be available to the general public and the ravages of the pandemic will begin to fade away. The school system will likely never have another semester quite like the one it completed last week. It’s been a test of historic proportions for Macon County Schools, and the grade they deserve for it depends on who’s doing the grading.
At the beginning of the school year, Macon County Schools had the state’s blessing to open up for in-person instruction on a hybrid schedule, which resulted in most students coming into class for just two days per week and using Google Classroom on the other days. Schools utilized intensive social distancing and disinfecting measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 cases developing at the schools. Superintendent Chris Baldwin says that the collaborative efforts of custodians, bus drivers, child nutrition staff, teachers, teacher assistants, support staff and school nurses and cooperation with the Department of Public Health have gone a long way towards keeping kids safe.
“COVID-19 has been present in our community and, therefore, in our schools for several months now,” Baldwin said. “However, very few cases of transmittal at school have been detected through the contact tracing conducted by the Macon County Health Department. Based upon this metric, it appears that our school staff has implemented preventative measures exceptionally well during the pandemic.”
All their efforts haven’t been enough to prevent some incidents from slipping through the cracks, however. New cases among staff and students pop up at different schools almost every day, including 24 cases since the Monday of the last week of classes. Furthermore, aggressive quarantine protocols have taken dozens of students out of school every month, most recently reaching 206 student quarantines between the November and December meetings of the Macon County Board of Education. Staff members aren’t exempt from the risk of quarantine either – in December alone, both Macon Middle School and Cartoogechaye Elementary School had to temporarily shut down because there just weren’t enough available faculty members to handle the children.
“I am very stubborn and giving up is not my nature, but when you get to a point that students and faculty may not be safe in an environment, you have to choose safety over stubbornness,” Macon Middle School principal Scot Maslin said of his school’s weeklong hiatus.
‘A nightmare’
As far as actual schooling goes, teachers have been impressed by the children’s resilience. Many have caught on quickly with how to use their tablets and the included software, and even for younger grade levels, they’ve done a good job respecting rules about social distancing and wearing masks. Heather Stanley, a fourth-grade teacher at East Franklin Elementary School, said the students in her class have had the most trouble with missing their friends on days off, while doing their schoolwork has been easier than expected.
“On the social side, I think it’s been harder on them, but I’ve seen pretty much normal quality work in class,” Stanley said.
“It’s been a nightmare,” said Darlene McDowell, who teaches seventh grade at Macon Middle.
At first, McDowell said, “some of the kids didn’t believe in wearing masks and social distancing,” she said. “All they had to do was listen to their friends talk about a grandparent dying to take it seriously.”
McDowell agreed that it’s been hardest on the students.
“Depression is rampant,” she said. “We had to bring in counselors, but it’s been a really hard job. A lot of people don’t understand what we’ve been through.”
Parents frustrated
East Franklin principal Sandra McMahan agreed that both teachers and students have put up a valiant effort to keep learning going strong.
“Students are showing progress and working very hard,” McMahan said. “Our teachers have worked above and beyond to meet the needs of our students. They have all done an excellent job with instruction delivery.”
The pandemic is an important qualifier, though. Parents and school staff alike seem to be in consensus that the current model is no substitute for education as usual, and parents in particular are worried that hybrid school isn’t getting the job done. Liliana Spellman, the mother of a Macon Middle School seventh-grader, said that her daughter was a straight-A student last year but had to switch to the school system’s virtual-only option in the middle of the semester because the stress of the hybrid schedule was too much for her. Even that didn’t fully undo the emotional health issues that are inherent to the rapid switch to distance learning.
“It’s been a disaster,” Spellman said. “Her sleep schedule is all over the place, she doesn’t get enough exercise because there’s nobody nearby, and she tells me that she can’t get motivated to do her studies at all. It’s been very harsh on her.”
Nicole Lappin, another Macon Middle School parent, said that neither of her children have gotten adequate attention from their teachers this year due largely to the virtual format of their classes. The toll on her children has shown up in both their mental wellbeing and their grades.
“My daughter, who is in eighth grade, has adjusted fairly well to all of the back and forth, never knowing if the two days a week she goes to school will be pushed to all virtual due to exposure – this has happened three times so far. For the first time, though, she has had extreme anxiety and panic attacks about assignments and feeling confused about instructions, due dates and the possibility of failing,” Lappin said. “My son has autism and extreme anxiety around the virus, so we thought virtual would be better, but unfortunately, this has not been the case. He has always been an A/B student and never struggled like this.”
Schools ask for patience
Much of this was inevitable. The school system has moderated expectations all year long and asked families to remember that as long as the pandemic is a factor, there will be no perfect right answers for their situation. Even at Franklin High School, where students are preparing to move on to college, the military and the workforce, principal Barry Woody said that everyone is trying their best with the regulations in place and that virtual learning still needs to evolve over time.
“Considering the pandemic and what these students, teachers and families are dealing with, I think we are still preparing our students as much as we can with all the restrictions,” Woody said. “Teachers, students and families have been asked to do things that we have never had to do in the education system or in society as a whole.”
Baldwin said that through all of the challenges the school year has brought, what’s kept his staff going is support from the families they serve. He’s certain that the second half of the year is going to bring its own set of challenges to cope with, and he hopes that the entire Macon County Schools community will be as patient and understanding as they have been in 2020.
“I know that parents have experienced a great deal of frustration with all of the changes and unfamiliar procedures that have been forced upon schools, classrooms and homes as a result of the pandemic,” Baldwin said. “The patience, cooperation and support that the overwhelming majority of parents have shown our school staff has been extremely encouraging and uplifting for our school staff. Please don’t give up now.”
Plans for next semester uncertain
School system officials, including members of the newly sworn-in school board, have said that they will take time to evaluate the COVID-19 situation during Christmas break and look for opportunities to have students in the classroom more often without compromising the safety of students, staff and the wider community. However, with Gov. Roy Cooper setting a statewide curfew that will last into the New Year, it seems unlikely that pandemic-related regulations are going away overnight. In the meantime, students, families and staff will have to soldier on and hope for the best.
South Macon Elementary School first-grader Rylan Armstrong may have put it best when asked how this year compares to the only other year of school he’s ever known.
“It’s fun, but it’s a lot harder,” Armstrong said.
The school board called a meeting for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 30 to discuss options for the next semester, which begins Tuesday, Jan. 5 for students.
For more information on Macon County Schools’ plans for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year, call the central office at 828-524-3314 or contact your child’s school directly.