Southern Pines Elementary School will shift all of its students to virtual learning for the next two weeks in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 after two confirmed instances of virus transmission among students within the school.
Another three to five cases of in-school secondary transmission are suspected, and three Southern Pines Elementary classrooms are on active quarantine. A total of 11 students and three staff members have tested positive since school resumed after the holiday break.
Moore County Schools announced on Friday afternoon that the school campus will be closed to students beginning Monday through Feb. 5.
A statement from Superintendent Bob Grimesey on Friday said that positive coronavirus cases and associated quarantines have created âdifficulty in maintaining day-to-day operations,â and that the Moore County Health Department supports the districtâs decision to close the school.
The Moore County Board of Education is now fielding calls to reprimand David Hensley in light of a remark he made on social media the day before the âStop the Stealâ rally in Washington, D.C. last week that ended when rioters breached the Capitol.
Hensley, who was elected to the school board in November, says that he did not attend the rally in support of President Donald Trump, and that his post on Moore County Republican Party social media manager Steve Woodwardâs personal Facebook page to bring back âsevered earsâ from the rally was intended as innocuous banter.
Negotiations around the sale of the old Southern Pines Elementary School campus may be approaching a successful resolution.
School board members authorized Moore County Schools officials to continue working toward a final agreement with Moore Montessori Community School, the charter school that hopes to purchase and move into the old Southern Pines Elementary, and roundly endorsed the latest set of provisions hammered out between the districtâs and Moore Montessoriâs attorneys.
Moore Montessori has been the leading potential buyer for the May Street property since June, when the schoolâs leaders offered to pay $1.08 million consistent with an appraisal of the old campus that the school district commissioned in late 2019.
As Moore County Schools works to negotiate a sale of the old Southern Pines Elementary campus to Moore Montessori Community School, school board members are doubling down on the conditions
A conservative wing of the State Board of Education objected Wednesday to new social studies standards designed to ensure North Carolina’s K-12 students learn “hard truths” about American history.
Those truths, supporters of the new standards contend, include complete and full-throated lessons about the nation’s original sin of slavery and the lasting racism and discrimination that followed.
“When it comes to facing the hard truths of our American narrative, what and how we teach history in our public schools matters, and it matters incredibly at this moment in history,” said state board advisor Matt Bristow-Smith, principal of Edgecombe Early College High and the 2019 Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year.