Wake suspends summer learning program, leaving teachers and parents ‘blindsided’

Wake County’s decision to suspend its summer learning program will cost struggling year-round students some opportunities to learn and cost their teachers thousands of dollars in extra income.

North Carolina school districts were required last summer to offer a new six-week summer learning program to help at-risk students dealing with learning loss. Traditional-calendar students completed the program over the summer, but Wake County announced this week that it will “pause” the program for the rest of the fall semester even though year-round and modified-calendar students aren’t done yet.

Wake cited staffing shortages, saying it’s having a hard time just trying to to get enough people to work during regular school days. School districts across the state are dealing with staffing shortages, particularly among bus drivers.

“This decision was made because many year-round schools simply do not have enough Child Nutrition Services staff, bus drivers, special education teachers, and in some cases even general education teachers to run the program as designed,” Edward McFarland, Wake’s chief academic advancement officer, said in a message to school employees on Tuesday.

Teachers, parents ‘blindsided’ by pause

The pause goes into effect next week just as some students were going to resume the next round of classes. Students at the year-round and modified-calendar schools take the program when they are on their mini-breaks, called trackouts.

“School staff, parents and students of year-round schools were completely blindsided as we were not consulted in the decision to suspend the extended learning program after traditional calendar schools were able to complete it in its entirety,” said Kat Noland, a teacher at Laurel Park Elementary School in Apex.

“If we would have been asked, we would have told you our students who need it most benefited greatly from the first two weeks of camp and we would have helped to find creative solutions to ensure the program continued.”

State lawmakers had required districts to create the summer learning program due to concerns about the limited amount of in-person instruction given during the coronavirus pandemic. Only 45% of students passed last school year’s state exams.

Students will miss out on learning time

Schools were required to offer 30 days or 150 hours of instruction to students. It was optional for students to attend.

Most of the state’s students attended the extended learning program during summer break. But due to the very short summer break at year-round schools, they were allowed to extend the program into the fall semester.

Some year-round students have only had two of the six weeks they’re supposed to receive.

More than 20,000 Wake students signed up for the new summer program. It’s unclear how many of them were year-round students.

Jenna Ochsenhirt says it’s unfair her son won’t get the same opportunity as traditional-calendar students to get the full six-week program. Her son is a special-education student at Neuse River Middle School in Raleigh.

“I feel like I”m being lied to,” said Ochsenhirt, a Knightdale parent. “It’s something my son needs, something my son deserves.”

Wake told the affected parents that their child’s school will continue to provide instruction tailored to their specific learning needs. Parents were urged to contact their child’s teachers if they have specific questions.

Wake also told parents it will continue to provide the state-mandated Read to Achieve camp for identified students in grades 1 through 3 beginning in March.

Teachers will lose money from pause

The suspension will also financially hurt school employees at year-round schools who signed up for the program.

Wake offered $45 an hour to teachers and $20 an hour to non-certified staff, plus an attendance bonus of up to $1,200 deepening on how many of the six weeks they worked. Some teachers were also eligible for a state-mandated $1,200 signing bonus.

Teachers will still get the signing bonus. But the year-round employees will only get paid for the time they’ve worked, which means they won’t get a chance to earn the extra hours of pay or the full $1,200 attendance bonus.

“Many staff gave up other income-producing opportunities to work for the extended learning program and others were depending on the extra income to offset income lost from second and third jobs during the pandemic,” said Noland, the teacher.

Noland called it a case of Wake showing disrespect to its employees.

The anger over the decision caused Wake to hastily apologize Tuesday to its employees.

“Yesterday, we shared that the district made the decision to pause the Extended Summer Learning program on Sept. 24,” McFarland, the chief academic advancement officer, said in the email. “We apologize for the way in which this decision was communicated given the implications on student learning and your compensation.”

McFarland said they’re listening to employee feedback on the issue.

“We are listening to you and are re-evaluating options given the reality of a nationwide labor shortage that has affected every aspect of our school operations,” McFarland said. “We will provide more information to you and as soon as possible.”