Schools to stay closed until next week
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on October 14, 2016 9:57 AM
Wayne County Public Schools superintendent Dr. Michael Dunsmore is working to get schools back open after Hurricane Matthew -- even if it's on a staggered schedule.
Officials announced late Thursday afternoon that schools will remain closed through mid-week. Schools will not be open to students and staff on Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday will be optional teacher workdays for employees able to report. The district is "tentatively" planning to bring students back Thursday and Friday, with Saturday being used as an early dismissal day.
"All these plans are subject to change based on changing conditions this week and next," the district press release said.
Last weekend's storm, and ensuing flooding, precipitated the closing of schools for the week as officials assess damage in the buildings and on the roads.
Flooding on Royall Avenue, where the district administrative offices are, forced leadership staff to relocate to Dillard Middle School for Monday and Tuesday.
As the week began, half of the schools were without electricity. That is no longer the case.
"All buildings have power, all buildings have water," Dunsmore said Wednesday. "We've been in every building. (There's) nothing as far as structural or severe damage.
"We had several buildings, obviously, had some waters blown in around doors, windows and a couple of roof leaks here and there. I think we are very, very blessed of the fact that we've had minor damage compared to a lot of other areas here in the county."
Compounding the problem has been the aftermath of the storm, as residents waited for the Neuse River to crest. That happened early Wednesday, forcing even more road closures and segmenting parts of the county. Shelters remain open at three of the district's schools -- Carver Heights and Carver elementary schools and Eastern Wayne High.
The looming question all week has been, when will it be safe to reopen schools?
Dunsmore faced a similar situation at his previous job, as superintendent of schools in Tyrrell County, when Hurricane Irene blew through in 2011.
"What we're trying to do is come up with every scenario," he said. "At this point we don't know. I'm kind of in a wait-and-see mode because (we're still using schools for shelters). We're in a state of emergency.
"There's not a whole lot we can do. And then obviously we've got to wait until the flood water recedes and I get the all-clear from the Department of Transportation before we start running buses on roads that are under water."
All that will take some time, as the county waits for water levels to go down. Dunsmore said the district is working on alternate bus routes, but even those are precarious until assessments are complete.
During Hurricane Floyd, 17 years ago, schools were closed nine days.
N.C. Rep. Jimmy Dixon announced his intent to seek a waiver from the state that districts adversely affected by the hurricane not have to make up days lost.
"I talked to Rep. Dixon," Dunsmore said. "There's a lot of variables.
"The last thing I want to do is take people's holidays (to make up the days). But I think somewhere we'll get a happy medium, where we'll use up some of the teacher workdays, early release days.
"As I said to Rep. Dixon, people are much happier when we can tack those onto the end of the year, but they're going to have to waive the calendar law to do that."
The schools' calendar across the state has long been a concern -- not only for start and end dates but in situations like this, where unforeseen issues like weather interrupt and force schools to shut down -- not to mention the constraints of required end-of-year testing.
"We have a window in testing," Dunsmore said. "We're going to have to test during that window whether we're out (now) or not. This is something the folks out west in the mountains deal with when they have big storms.
"We're not flying blind on this but again, yeah, we're also putting together a scenario if they add time to the day -- add 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the afternoon, that's two and one-half hours a week. You can build up two school days a month. That's significant."
The district is looking at its options, the superintendent said.
"What I'm going to give the representative (Dixon) then is where we're at with all that, what's our best case as far as getting back to school, where we don't have to worry about those things and let's get back to business as usual," he said. "But again, we've got an awful lot of folks that are displaced, a lot of people with needs. There's a lot happening."
As of Wednesday, maintenance crews had been in every school building, determining what needs to be done in each.
"Fortunately we didn't have any significant damage but we do have cleanup that we're going to have to deal with," Dunsmore said. "So we're doing that and as we can get buildings clear, I'm going to have maintenance crews and other folks involved with that.
"As soon as we can get that done and start getting staff that can get to the buildings, we're going to start opening them up."
Ideally, he would like all 33 schools to reopen at once, he said, but that may not happen.
"A big piece of that's going to be predicated on how long we have schools that are being used as shelters," he said. "I am concerned down at Brogden Primary, that's where there's a huge section of the road out so we know we're going to be mapping around some different ways.
"If we have to start staggering openings of schools, we'll do what we've gotta do to get our children back and things as normal as possible. That's kind of what we're working on."