UPDATE: July 31. The Hickman Mills school board approved the administration’s plan to start the school year Aug. 24, but in an all-virtual format.

UPDATE: July 29. The North Kansas CIty School District announced it will be delaying the start of the school year until Sept. 8 and is increasing its virtual school options. Kansas City Public Schools released more details on its reopening plans.

UPDATE: July 27. Over the weekend, the Grandview and Center school districts revised their plans for starting the school year. Grandview will delay the start of its school year to Sept 8 and be entirely online until further notice. Center administration is recommending delaying the start of the school year to Aug. 26 and also all online. Center’s school board approved the proposal at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday night.

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Our reckless summer with Covid-19 is proving all the warnings true.

And now schools and their essential social infrastructure are toppling again under the weight of hundreds of new coronavirus cases every day just as districts were daring to launch meticulous, precarious reopening plans.

The prospects of seeing in-person classrooms Aug. 24 — which was Opening Day for many districts including LINC’s Caring Communities partners — are eroding as health officials increasingly see a risk that is growing too large.

July 22, Kansas City Superintendent Mark Bedell formally recommended before his school board that his district begin the school year fully virtual and delay the start to after Labor Day.

He did so, while quoting from Rudyard Kipling, “ . . . If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . .,” and adding his own line: “We are in a messed-up world right now.”

Too often, the state twists between stark contrasts of Covid responses:

For every scene of school administrators laboring over their safety plans, there were other scenes playing out like the crowd Friday night packed into Big Dick’s Halfway Inn bar and grill at the Lake of the Ozarks — live music, standing room only, shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing nose-to-nose, not a mask in sight.

“This has turned into somewhat of a political theater, and districts are getting caught in the middle,” Kenny Southwick, the executive director of the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City, told the Kansas City Star.

Every district this week is either delaying its start or keeping the possibility on the table.

The stress has been building for teachers and other school staff as the task of keeping their work environments safe grew more and more daunting.

July 21, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Health Director Rex Archer recommended that schools delay opening in-person classrooms at least until after Labor Day, Sept. 7, following the lead of Kansas Governor Laura Kelly who called for the same delay across the State Line.

In recent weeks, most school districts were surveying parents and beginning enrollment into their family’s choice of either online virtual school programming or in-person enrollment. Because of the need for safe-spacing indoors, districts were creating various plans to reduce the number of children in classrooms, including alternating days of in-person education.

But new Center School District Superintendent Yolanda Cargile warned parents in a virtual town hall Wednesday night that Center is also having to take a hard look at its plans as it prepares to announce them to the school board Monday night.

“Please know,” she said, “that full virtual and a late start are on the list of options.”

High stakes

Cargile’s caution and that of every superintendent this week come weighted with concern. Districts — especially those serving high percentages of low-income families — have many reasons to feel an urgency to return to class.

The consequences of closed or severely limited in-person schooling threatens to increase a gaping chasm in the education of children whose households have strong internet access and skills and those whose don’t.

The consequences also reach beyond education as the burden of caring for children at home during the day falls harder on single-parent, working households where a guardian can be forced to choose between work or child care.

That dynamic disproportionately affects working women over working men.

Most districts held out some hope for some in-person classwork, including Center, Hickman Mills, North Kansas City and Fort Osage, but as Grandview Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez said in his latest video this week to his district, the pandemic’s numbers will tell the tale.

Note updates: Hickman Mills is opening Aug. 24 all virtual. Center opening Aug. 26 all virtual. KCPS and Grandview are opening Sept. 8, all virtual. North Kansas City and Fort Osage are opening Sept. 8, planning a mix of virtual and in-person options.

“I’m not willing or ready to make that announcement (to delay the school year or go all virtual),” Rodrequez said. “But I can assure you we are watching the same numbers and staying in touch with the Jackson County Health Department and making sure we have the latest information possible.”

North Kansas City alerted its families on its Facebook page that the district is weighing the recommendation from Kansas City to delay the school year.

“There are many factors to weigh,” the statement read. “Consideration will certainly be given to the safety of our students and staff as we prepare for learning this fall.”

‘It’s not possible to sustain this’

Kansas City Public Schools laid out its plan for re-entry once there is at least a 14-day drop in the advance of Covid cases.

Pre-K to 3rd grade would return first, all in-person, prioritizing the youngest children who need the support of a classroom during the critical foundational years of reading.

Then grades four to eight would return in a hybrid model, alternating between in-person instruction and virtual. High school students would return next, also in a hybrid mode.

Meanwhile, Kansas City, like other districts, will be having to protect staff, sanitize, deploy thermometers, continue to infuse more technology into students’ hands, provide professional development for teachers, and help fortify parents — all of this as stress on state funding cuts education budgets.

Congress and the President are weighing more pandemic stimulus aid, and Bedell warned that schools must be a priority for aid.

“If we don’t get an infusion of significant money,” he said, “it’s not possible to sustain this.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer