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Little girl taking online courses in living room

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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board has voted for all K-12 students to learn remotely starting on Dec. 14. A vote that passed by a 6-3 margin on Tuesday night.

The move to curb the spread of Coronavirus comes as new cases hit a record-high in North Carolina. This decision by the board means that students will be in full remote learning from Dec. 14 until Jan. 19.

However, no changes for Pre-K instruction that will still be offered in-person. It remains one of the many questionable things to come out of the Board’s decision and is also an argument Rhonda Cheek presented to her fellow Board members during last night’s meeting.

She joined WBT’s Bo Thompson Morning Show Wednesday asking, “What’s the difference between Pre-K and Kindergarten?”

Students aren’t separated by a significant age gap, but yet the rules are different between the two groups due to classification. Cheek also stressed that students between Kindergarten and 3rd grade, who’re at-risk for falling behind, could face tremendous challenges due to the lack of in-person instruction. An issue she says the Board “acknowledges” as being a real issue, but won’t change at the current time.

Cheek was one of the three dissenters, who cited an overall lack of academic support tied to remote learning as the main reason to vote against the initiative. Others felt differently about student attending classes in-person including Board Chair Elyse Dashew.

“None of us wants to put our kids back behind a computer screen instead of in the classroom with a live teacher,” said Dashew. “But the health and safety of our students and staff comes first – and the COVID-19 metrics indicate that the number of infections is going up and will continue to do so for a while. So we will return to remote learning for K-12 students.”

Listen to the entire interview with Rhonda Cheek on The Bo Thompson Morning Show below.