Will Kansas City cancel in-person classes? District rethinks plan as COVID-19 spikes
Kansas City Public Schools officials are rethinking plans for in-person class this coming school year because the city health department is now advising against it.
The district on Monday was set to release school reopening plans that would offer parents options, including either in-person classes or online. But after a spike in COVID-19 cases in Kansas City over the last few days, “we are having to re-evaluate our plan,” said Superintendent Mark Bedell.
“We have to see that numbers are declining in order for us to come back to school in person,” Bedell said.
In a letter sent Monday morning to parents, the district said, “The Health Department issued new and updated guidance stating that in-person school was not advised in Kansas City. The number of positive COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in this region.”
The in-person options “are no longer advised at the moment.”
During an interview with The Star, Bedell stopped short of saying the district may need to delay the Aug. 24 start of school or may not be able to bring students and teachers back into classrooms at all next month.
The school board will discuss changes at its meeting on Wednesday, and Bedell expects to release a new plan by early next week.
On Sunday, the five-county Kansas City area saw 485 new cases, its largest single-day increase in confirmed coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic, according to local and state health departments.
Last week, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly announced that on Monday, she would sign an executive order to delay opening schools until after Labor Day. “I can’t in good conscience open schools when cases in our state are at an all-time high and continuing to rapidly rise,” Kelly said.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson during a St. Louis radio interview on Friday, said students should go back into schools, even though he believes most will catch COVID-19 there.
“If they do get COVID-19, which they will, and they will when they go to school, they’re not going to the hospitals, they’re not going to have to sit in doctors’ offices,” said Parson, a Republican. “They’re going to go home, and they’re gonna get over it and most of it all proves out to be that way if you look at the science of it.”
Missouri Democrats accused him of being cavalier with the health of students, parents and teachers.
KCPS, like other districts in the Kansas City area, has been working on school reopening plans all summer, with guidance from local and state health and education officials. Some other area districts have released plans offering a mix of online and in-person classes and requiring mask wearing, social distancing and increased sanitizing.
KCPS surveyed parents on whether they want their children sitting in classrooms with masks and social distance rules or whether they would keep their children at home learning online. While the results of those parent surveys were not released publicly, Bedell said the district has used that information to put its plan together.
But deciding how to safely reopen school has been challenging because “this thing changes from day to day,” Bedell said.
“What I have been hearing people say to me at least three or four times a week is, ‘I’m sure happy that I am not in your position.’ It has been very hard and difficult to sleep. I worry about our students and the adults. I think about the decision I have to make knowing that no matter what that decision is, it is not going to be optimal for everyone,” Bedell said.
“I have to make a decision based on the boundaries that I cover,” he said, adding that he doesn’t want other districts to think the decision they make for their students and teacher should be based on what KCPS does.
“Every superintendent has to make their own decision and do what is best for their district. What we do may look completely different from other districts.”
The latest local data shows the virus has infected 13,858 of the metro’s residents, killing 287. Those numbers were up from the 11,428 infections and 259 deaths reported the previous week.
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 11:43 AM.
