Roanoke City Public Schools will be online only for the majority of students through the first nine weeks of the 2020–21 school year.
The Roanoke School Board voted 6-1 late Tuesday to approve the district's recommended phased reopening plan, following a four-hour meeting that include two hours of rigorous questioning and discussion. Member Laura Rottenborn cast the dissenting vote.
Most students, with exceptions, will be fully online for the first nine weeks. The plan calls for a gradual phasing in of in-person learning beginning in the second nine weeks, contingent on COVID-19 case levels.
School board members spent much of two hours asking questions about the presentation provided by Superintendent Verletta White and her staff. The discussion at times verged into impassionate explanations of board members’ views.
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Rottenborn at one point spent an upward of 13 minutes explaining why she could not vote for the plan.
“I wish that I could be part of the team to vote yes,” she said.
Her reasons included her belief that the data did not support going fully virtual for the first nine weeks, citing deaths, testing positivity rate and hospital capacity. Earlier in the evening, she said there was a discrepancy between the data the Virginia Department of Health publicly shared versus what health officials provided schools.
Rottenborn said she worried that her objections may be misconstrued as not supporting White. But the board member, a lawyer, went into detail on many other reasons for why she couldn’t support the plan, including what she considers to be threats to students beyond COVID-19: increasing levels of child abuse, suicide, drug use, violent crime and gang recruitment, and widening achievement gaps.
"For me, the biggest weight on the scale is that our solution, to me, does not feel equitable,” she said, feeling “guilt-ridden” that she can sign her children up for popular learning “pods” even though other families can’t afford that.
“I think our solution punishes our most vulnerable population and our minority population,” she said, receiving a standing ovation from five attendees and a rousing round of applause.
Chair Lutheria Smith and members Joyce Watkins and Natasha Saunders — the board’s three Black members — each noted that Black and Hispanic children not only suffer disproportionately from an achievement gap but also have disproportionate negative health outcomes, including with COVID-19.
All three voted in favor of the plan.
“Our students and our community are not immune to the disparities that exist in health care,” Smith said.
“I, for one, am not willing to risk one life for premature death,” Watkins said.
The board’s broad approval to start the school year online didn’t preclude members from thinking ahead to the second nine weeks, when they hope to get students back into the classroom.
“As a member of this board who felt called to this work to address the stubborn achievement gap that has plagued children of color and poverty for decades, the thought that virtual learning has inherent equity issues that are expected to broaden during this time keeps me awake at night,” Smith said. “I cannot fathom the possible short- and long-term negative effects this will have on children who are already struggling academically.”
White said the division's reopening task force favored a more cautious approach in part because the city’s “level of transmission is in the ‘substantial’ range.” That caused a domino effect: The district would need 6 feet of physical distancing instead of 3 feet with masks at some schools, which in turn caused infrastructure and staffing challenges.
The task force considered other plans, but each alternative presented its own challenges, White said.
White said she believed it was important to be transparent with the public and explain the rationale. Executive staff provide a presentation about each part of the plan, from instruction to safety.
Greg Johnston, the executive director for K-5 instruction, promised a better experience than the haphazard virtual learning of the spring semester.
Laptops will be loaned to families who need one, and the district will work to ensure every family has reliable internet access, according to the plan.
The division will continue to provide meals through grab-and-go or meal delivery. For the 2020–21 school year, all students in every Roanoke school will automatically receive free meals; previously, Crystal Spring and Grandin Court elementary schools did not participate in the Community Eligibility Provision.
There are 877 students out of the district’s 14,000 students who will be able to be in the classroom up to four days per week in the first quarter, said Executive Director of Special Education Haley Poland. That includes students who spend more than half of their school day in a special education program, who attend Forest Park Academy or Noel C. Taylor Academy at Oakland and need extra support to graduate, and level one English language learners.
Pre-K through fifth grade students beginning in the second quarter would attend in-person two days per week. All students would attend four days per week in the third nine weeks, and students would attend five days per week in the final quarter. Students will have the option to remain online the entire school year.
Earlier in the evening, 13 people spoke during the public comment period about schools reopening. A majority advocated for an in-person option, either by way of the district’s initial proposed plan or a scaled-down version. Others supported the all-virtual plan or asked questions they wanted the board to consider.
The division’s initial plan, presented to the school board in mid-July, called for a maximum of 70% of students in the classroom four days per week. Before the downshift, it was an outlier in the Roanoke and New River Valleys for the number of days students would attend in-person. Now the district remains an outlier — as of Wednesday, at least — this time for being virtual.
The Salem School Board also voted Tuesday to scale back its plan to one day per week of in-person instruction for the first two weeks of the academic year. Roanoke County Public Schools as of last week remained on track for its hybrid reopening. Pre-K through second grade students will attend five days in-person, and older students will attend two days per week.
Local districts all allow students to choose fully virtual learning if they don’t feel comfortable attending in-person.