Mid-July — that’s when most area school districts said they hope to lay out their plans for the 2020-2021 school year.

Here it comes. And an alarming rise in coronavirus cases and the growing cacophony of voices raining pleas and demands on schools makes the Year of the Pandemic feel almost unreal for school communities.

But ideas are churning at warp speed. Here’s one example, in the name of safe-spacing: How about overflow class space and after-school programs in church basements?

This week, the United Way of Greater Kansas City hosted a virtual gathering of leaders from schools, non-profits and other community groups that revealed some of the thinking — and rethinking — under way in the rapidly changing storm of COVID-19, even as some districts, including North Kansas City Schools, get an early start.

Everyone is having to re-imagine their roles — from teachers to parents to church leaders and anyone else with a stake in their communities.

“This is clearly beyond the capacity of schools alone to address,” said Hedy Chang, the executive director of the national initiative Attendance Works. “Teachers have responded heroically, but we have to help them.”

With Centers for Disease Control school guidelines as their supplemental Bible, church leaders are among those looking for ways to help.

Many working families will need to have their children in a physical classroom both during the school day and in after-school hours — and schools may be limited by spacing.

With proper CDC protocols in place regarding protective equipment, masks, sanitation and other measures, churches and community spaces can provide relief, said Bob Hill, the minister emeritus of Community Christian Church in Kansas City.

Hill has been recruiting churches in his role as consultant in community engagement for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The church coalition means to provide spaces that would also be equipped for learning, with computers and other programming to fit the needs of schools and after-school programmers.

“It’s not just babysitting,” he said.

While school administrators and teachers are hard at work creating flexible, adaptive learning plans for the school day, other school leaders are also rethinking roles.

Crossroads Charter Schools, for example, is looking for ways to redirect the work of its army of volunteers, said Nina Ward, Crossroads’ community engagement coordinator. And high school students too.

Volunteers could be scattered virtually into work helping with after-school clubs and tutoring, Ward said. High school students could gain community service credits doing similar activities with younger children in ways that keep everyone safe.

So much still has be to figured out and the conditions keep changing, Ward said, “but we definitely want to try to make it happen.”

Much of the focus is on how to help younger students stay engaged. The demands of virtual lessons and school work are more difficult on elementary children who need more adult guidance. Engagement with parents — always important — is more critical than ever.

The Hickman Mills School District shared lessons learned so far in its work with Attendance Works that began before the pandemic but has continued on with a sharper mission.

Teachers are joined in an outreach team including school nurses, counselors, family school liaisons, attendance clerks and administrators that the district said kept contact with 97% of the district’s families in the months after schools closed in March.

“We’re all going to own this,” said Kia Turner, CEO of Red Apple Education and a consultant working with Hickman Mills. “We all have to work proactively from our specific roles.”

Just be prepared. Everyone’s roles are changing — so it goes with COVID.

By Joe Robertson/LINC writer