Chapel Hill school has had no COVID cases thanks to outdoor classes

One private school in Chapel Hill has not had any COVID cases or quarantines, thanks largely to the great outdoors.

The classroom and playground have become one at Emerson Waldorf School in Chapel Hill, which has a 56-acre campus.

It's a more natural environment, where the teacher's pet is actually a Golden Retriever named Mabel, who has the run of roofless rooms where walls are made of hardwoods and pines.

High school seniors sit around campfires instead of chalk boards, and discuss books about the history of indigenous tribes of North America.

"When the pandemic hit, we decided we wanted to do whatever we could to be on campus," said Colleen Everhart, director of the private school, which hosts 274 students from preschool to 12th grade.

"Pre-pandemic, we were usually in classrooms," she said.

But now those classrooms are usually empty – though masks are still required.

"It's different, but I guess it's just nicer than sitting in the same old classroom every day inside," said M.J. Feinberg, a 7th grader at the school.

Teacher Whitney MacDonald says the outdoor classrooms have become about so much more than COVID mitigation. There's no better place to teach poetry, he says, than among real leaves and grass.

"So they are really living in that metaphor without thinking about it," he said. "I think it makes the poems more alive."

Of course, there are times when the students have to come inside: When there's thunder, or if it's too hot or too cold. But even when indoors, the windows are opened and air filtration systems turned on.

Students and teachers have come to prefer outdoor classrooms.

Everhart said, "In our country, I think the average amount of time that students spend outdoors is typically an hour at day."

Jill Hemming Austin, a parent at the school, says it's done wonders for her own kids.

"We know that being outside is great for mental health, and we can see that clearly," she said.

Here's one school where pandemic protection – comes naturally.

School leaders say they have seen their enrollment increase during the pandemic, going from 180 at the start of last school year to more than 270 now.