Eleven southeast Kansas school leaders attended Branson retreat; six now have COVID
Eleven school administrators in one small southeast Kansas community are in quarantine after several tested positive for COVID-19 once they returned from a leadership retreat in Branson.
Staff members and community partners in Chanute, Kansas, USD 413 received an email Friday alerting them that at least three people on the “Building/District leadership team” had the coronavirus. The team was together for three days early last week at the annual retreat, according to an email sent by Superintendent Kellen Adams.
On Monday afternoon, Adams told The Star that three more people who were on the retreat — which included eight building administrators and three district leaders — now have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total to six.
The symptoms range from minor to severe, he said. One person, Adams said, is in the ICU.
“We are dedicated to helping not only those of the leadership team, but just as importantly, anyone who may have become exposed,” Adams wrote in the email. “Our protocols will continue to be followed, including that no one will go back into any buildings until they have been cleared of symptoms or have completed the mandatory quarantine period.”
The Chanute cases come as school districts and parents across the country are debating when kids should go back to the classroom. The Chanute district has had two other employees — not associated with the leadership retreat — test positive for the virus.
Some in southeast Kansas have turned to social media to express their concerns after hearing the news of school leaders testing positive.
“And yet they think it’s smart to start school back up this month.. what a joke,” one woman wrote Saturday on the “We are Chanute” Facebook page.
Said another: “How can they expect our kids to follow safe distancing when school starts when it’s apparent adults can’t?”
It isn’t known if someone in the group of school leaders had the virus before the retreat or if they contracted it while in the southwest Missouri tourism town, which has been overwhelmed with cases in the past month.
“That’s a good question,” Adams said. “We’re still not sure. No one had any signs or symptoms, anything like that.”
One member didn’t want any dinner last Tuesday night, the superintendent said, because of a possible “stomach bug.” But later in the evening, that person participated in other events.
The retreat was crucial, the superintendent said, because leaders discussed details of how to have a successful school year during a global pandemic.
COVID numbers in Chanute’s Neosho County have gone from 35 total cases on July 6 to 56 on Monday. Until the past few days, the health department administrator said, the county had not dealt with an outbreak in awhile.
Last week, the department posted on its website that it had just one active case.
“Today we have eight active,” Teresa Starr, administrator with the Neosho County health department, told The Star on Monday afternoon. “We were hoping this would not happen, but now it did and we are making sure we protect our citizens as much as we can.”
The Chanute school board had a special meeting July 27 to discuss plans to reopen schools. The board decided to have teachers return on Aug. 10 and students on Aug. 24.
Do the new cases change things?
“I would say as of today, it does not,” Adams said. “Of course this whole thing is constantly changing.”
Adams said at a July 28 online Q&A forum that a survey of parents found that the largest percentage wanted their children to return to school on Aug. 12. A survey of staff, however, found that the largest percentage wanted to wait until Sept. 9 — the date Gov. Laura Kelly mandated in her executive order that was later rejected by the State Board of Education.
The Chanute district has scheduled a live webinar at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to provide updates and share new information on the 2020-2021 school year. The forum will be streamed on the district’s Facebook page.
During the trip, everyone used hand sanitizer and wore masks — “at least three of them I can think of never took their masks off,” Adams said. Everyone but Adams drove there Monday morning. The superintendent headed to Branson late Monday evening after the meeting in Chanute.
He wasn’t aware of the influx of cases the Branson area had been experiencing. The town’s Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance requiring everyone to wear masks last Tuesday, while the school leaders were in Branson. But it didn’t go into effect until Friday after the Chanute team was back in Kansas.
One school district employee said some think attending the retreat was irresponsible, especially with classes about to start.
“They’re still trying to get a committee to plan how we’re going to have safety protocols in place when school starts, but that committee is run by some of the people who tested positive,” said the employee, who did not want to be named. “And people now are very scared, because they were holding those meetings in person.
“Our numbers have been low, so I think it had been giving people the idea that we’re safe. But we’re going to get there; it’s just a matter of time.”
In less than a week, cases in Taney County, where Branson is located, had jumped by about 60 percent. Last Tuesday, the state reported that the southwest Missouri county had 284 cases. By Monday afternoon, six days later, the cases had jumped to 456.
“We’ve been seeing it for several weeks now,” said Lisa Marshall, the Taney County health director. “We are just getting more cases than we can handle at a time. Most are community spread — it’s everywhere.”
Adams said he knows there will be criticism of the fact his group took the trip. But, he said, precautions were taken.
“Hindsight is always 20/20,” he said. “Could we have simply just canceled the trip, right? But the reality is we would have still been meeting as a group. … We still would have had the need to do all of the work that we did. And I would venture to guess if we stayed in Chanute, we would have still met face to face because we still believe there was significant value in that.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 5:35 PM.
