Destination unknown: Schools go boldly (with mixed plans) into new year with Covid
Photos from (left to right) KCUR, Independence School District, CBS News
Here’s hoping that every school district — no matter how they choose to take on Covid — will be able to say in the end that they did it right.
Because, with no clear path through the pandemic, schools begin the 2020-2021 school year vulnerable to second-guessing, whether they start all online or send masked students into buildings with their teachers.
Opening Day plans
Here’s how LINC’s partner districts planned to open the 2020-2021 school year.
Hickman Mills: open Aug. 24, all online.
Lee A. Tolbert Academy: open Aug. 24, all online.
Center: open Aug. 26, all online
Kansas City: open Sept. 8, all online
Grandview: open Sept. 8, all online
Fort Osage: open Sept. 8, K-4th grade classes in-person, 5th to 12th grade classes mixed in-person and online.
North Kansas City: open Sept 8, Pre-K and elementary classes in-person, secondary school classes mixed in-person and online.
They range from those districts delaying until Sept. 8 and teaching all online, to some that began with some children in their classrooms as originally scheduled Aug. 24.
“I know it’s very confusing,” Grandview Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez said about his district’s delayed start in a Facebook video Aug. 24, “when we have neighbors . . . that started school today.”
“They are getting different guidance and they’re looking at different numbers than I am,” he said. “Just know we’re doing it for the health and safety of all our students . . . and staff as well.”
The difficulty of the decision played out in the contrasting outcries of concerned groups. Independence opened Aug. 24 with elementary children in their classrooms — which was protested as unsafe for teachers by some teacher advocates. Lee’s Summit prepared to open the year entirely online and drew a crowd of protesting parents who want their children in classes. Similar conflicts played out in many other districts.
“Covid-19 has brought challenges, stress and uncertainty for schools across the country,” North Kansas City Superintendent Dan Clemens said in a message to his district, which delayed until Sept. 8 with plans to begin with some in-person education mixed with online.
“A consistent message has been almost impossible at times,” Clemens said, “as information continually changes.”
If every school district can end up coming out of the pandemic feeling good about their plans, that would mean school families and staff were spared from dangerous Covid outbreaks, that online teachers and support staff kept children engaged, gaps in learning were mitigated, children were safe at home or in class, and families were supported through financial and employment strains.
But that’s what’s at stake, and why there is so much pressure on school districts, whatever their plans are.
The challenge, Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Mark Bedell said on the district’s web page, is to “balance the need to protect public health and provide a public education.”
“This process,” he said, “will not follow any predetermined timeline but will rather evolve based on the status of the pandemic in our community.”
That means relying on data and science, he said, in close consultation with public health officials.
Without the fog of Covid, several school districts would be focused on exciting new beginnings.
Hickman Mills, which began online instruction Aug. 24, would rather be enjoying the spark of a new superintendent, Yaw Obeng, heartened by the overwhelming support of its community in approving a $30 million bond issue.
Center’s new football field is one of many renovations waiting students when schools reopen. Screen shot from a Center Facebook video.
Center, which opens online instruction Aug. 26, could see more attention on a new superintendent, Yolanda Cargile, who came to Center from Hickman Mills. The community could enjoy more the fruits of its own bond issue, for $48 million, passed in 2019. (See Cargile exhibiting the work in this video.)
Center also has a new turf football field, thanks to the charity of the NFL.
So much is waiting for students in schools across the area.
But predicting when students can get back in classes, or how long they’ll be able to stay once they get there is a blind exercise, with no shortage of competing, evolving reports.
An Olathe teacher has a Google sheet cataloging school Covid cases nationwide. A Tableau map plots the cases on a U.S. map. New York Times research compiles data in a map suggesting which counties can or should not open schools in-person, and Missouri is entirely a no-go red.
Even the recommendation that schools improve chances of a successful opening by delaying any in-person instruction at least until Sept. 8 may be overly hopeful, Kansas City Health Director Rex Archer told the Kansas City Star.
Said Archer: “I don’t predict any schools will stay open through the fall.”
By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer
Children in Independence’s Blackburn Elementary School demonstrate safe distancing during the first week of school. Facebook photo by the Independence School District.