Durham parents divided over reopening schools, as state decision looms

Nearly a year of remote learning has made Chris Flannagan’s 8-year-old son frequently withdrawn and depressed. He sometimes tells his parents he’s “too sad” to interact with people, Flannagan said.

Frustrated with Durham Public Schools’ plan to stay remote for the rest of the school year and believing his son isn’t learning enough from virtual classes, Flannagan asked his wife to share their concerns on a Facebook group for Durham parents.

“She said to me, ‘they’re not going to appreciate these comments,’” Flannagan said. “And she was right.”

The post suggested holding a protest outside the district’s board of education building, and it drew nearly 800 comments, mostly from parents who disagreed with him, he said. Some parents in the SoDu Parents Posse group accused him and his wife of wanting to send teachers to their possible death. One person called him a “Trumper,” he said.

“I’m not a Trumper,” he said. “To equate me with, like, Donald Trump, because I want my kids to go back to school is ridiculous.”

As state lawmakers consider mandating an in-person instruction option, families are divided over the Durham school district’s determination to stick with online classes as a precaution against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, health experts in North Carolina and across the country are urging districts to reconsider remote learning, saying scientific evidence shows schools with the right measures in place can reopen safely.

Other Triangle-area districts, like Wake and Orange County’s public schools, are already transitioning to in-person instruction.

Senate Bill 37, which would require schools to offer an in-person instruction option, is one vote away from Gov. Roy Coopers desk, The News & Observer Reported.

The newest version of the bill passed the Senate on Tuesday 31-16, and it will be up for a vote in the N.C. House of Representatives Wednesday.

DPS Board of Education Chair Bettina Umstead hears equally from parents on both sides of the issue, she said in an interview with The N&O on Feb. 10.

The school board will have an emergency meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday “to discuss the district’s response to Senate Bill 37,” according to a district news release.

“This is not a political thing to me”

Dr. Amy Liao Askew, a parent of a 7-year-old at E. K. Powe Elementary and two preschool-age children, said she has emailed DPS school board members almost every week since August to ask about their re-opening plan.

“This is not a political thing to me,” said Askew, who is an obstetrics and gynecology physician. “This is data-driven and science-driven.”

She knows five families who took their kids out of DPS to enroll them in private school because of the district’s re-opening stance. She worries about parents who may not be able to work from home or to pay for extra child care, she said.

“To me, there’s no doubt that this has been detrimental in so many ways,” she said.

Nearly half of DPS middle and high school students had an “F” in at least one class during the first quarter of the school year. The percentage of kids with a failing grade and over four absences was larger for students of color than for white students, The N&O reported.

In addition, 2,850 students had transferred out of DPS by the 20th day of the school year, according to a district estimate.

A Jan. 21 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that while school-related cases of COVID-19 have been reported, “there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”

Dr. Elizabeth Baltaro has twins in kindergarten at Morehead Montessori Elementary and a 2-year-old in daycare. She said the JAMA article and other studies published since last summer have reinforced her position on reopening schools.

“I realized that COVID-19 didn’t seem to be as contagious as I had feared, like it seemed to be easily stoppable by mask wearing and hand washing,” said Baltaro, a family physician at a rural health center.

Some parents are circulating a petition, called Working Families for Safe Schools, to pressure the school board to bring kids back to classrooms.

Rafe Mazer, whose kindergartner goes to E. K. Powe Elementary, signed the petition. He wants parents to have a choice between in-person classes and remote instruction. The school board’s decision on Jan. 6 to stay remote frustrated him, he said.

“If you don’t take a local policy action on the most important policy issue of the day, sometimes that void gets filled further up the food chain with policies that are maybe not the best fit for your community,” he said, about Senate Bill 37.

Some parents skeptical of health experts

A mother of two kids at Holt Elementary and one preschooler, Yesica Perez Rico said she doesn’t think there is enough evidence yet to support safely reopening schools.

She disagrees with a recent statement by CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who said teachers do not need to be vaccinated before reopening.

Two teachers in Johnston and Cumberland counties died of COVID-19 complications last winter, though neither was believed to have contracted the virus at school, The N&O previously reported.

The Charlotte Observer reported three teachers died of COVID-19 complications between October and January in Stanly, Union and Lincoln counties. It’s unclear whether any of them contracted the coronavirus in the classroom.

Perez Rico doubts kids could follow all of the social distancing rules.

“How are you going to stop a child from getting excited that they’re in the room with their buddies?” Perez Rico said.

“It’s almost impossible,” she added. “And the teacher is going to want to focus on getting the instruction done, right?”

Perez Rico also supports giving parents the option to return to class if they cannot make virtual learning work at home. “I’m kind of torn. I understand families who need to go out and work,” she said.

Cheryl Navalinsky, an instructional assistant and parent of a seventh and 10th grader at Durham School of the Arts, also wants teachers to be fully vaccinated before returning to work in-person, she said.

She questions recent findings from Duke University’s health experts.

Co-chair of Duke’s ABC Science Collaborative Dr. Kanecia Zimmerman, a professor of pediatrics, concluded in January that schools can be a safe environment even in the midst of alarming spread in communities.

The collaborative looked at 90,000 school children and staff who attended school in-person during the first quarter of the 2020-21 school year. Only 32 COVID-19 infections were acquired from within school, the study showed. In contrast, 773 cases were acquired from the community within the 11 districts.

Navalinsky said Duke’s research may not consider how some kids may trade face masks with classmates or return home to families who don’t regularly practice social distancing.

“I think that on paper, it might look good. But then when it comes to the reality of putting it into practice, it’s not going to be as cut and dry,” she said.

At a Duke media briefing on reopening K-12 schools Feb. 10, Zimmerman said schools are “really good” at enforcing rules.

“We’ve talked to the superintendents, we talked to the teachers and to the principals,” she said. “And they’re working really hard to make sure that people are actually enforcing the mitigation measures.”