Kansas City schools won’t start until after Labor Day — online only, board decides
Following the advice of the superintendent, as well as the mayor and health department director, the Kansas City school board voted unanimously Friday to delay starting school until after Labor Day, and then hold classes online only.
Now school will start on Sept. 8 and run through June 10, said district spokesman Ray Weikal.
Superintendent Mark Bedell pointed to recent spikes in COVID-19 cases.
“There is no way I can recommend that we bring people back into our school environments given the records that are being broken here in the Kansas City area,” Bedell told the board at its meeting Wednesday night. “What we don’t want to do is be an organization that commits any unnecessary and undue harm for our students, teachers or staff.”
Under the district’s plan, when the number of coronavirus cases has declined for 14 consecutive days, students will come back in phases, wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
Students in pre-K through third grade will be the first to return to 100% in-person classes. Health officials have said the youngest children are at lower risk for contracting and spreading the virus.
Students in grades four through 12 will start back to in-person class slowly, at first getting only a few days in the classroom and learning online from home the other days.
If cases start to spike again, the district may revert to more online classes, Weikal said.
On Tuesday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Health Department Director Rex Archer recommended that all schools in the city — including the 14 districts, charters and private and parochial schools — wait until after Labor Day to start in-person classes.
Archer said his recommendation was based on data showing a recent rise in new coronavirus cases among people under 19 in Kansas City. He and Lucas said they hoped the delay would offer time for those numbers to decline and for schools to better prepare.
KCPS officials said they will use the time to provide additional training for teachers to deliver online instruction and to help parents become familiar with the online formats the district will use for each grade level.
There is no mandate in Missouri or Kansas for when and how schools should start, so those decisions are up to individual districts and schools.
Lee’s Summit school district officials said they intend to reopen on Aug. 26 and will follow recommendations from the Jackson County Health Department rather than Kansas City.
But some charter schools, including Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy and Ewing Marion Kauffman School, will offer only online classes for at least the first quarter.
On Wednesday the Kansas State Board of Education rejected an order by Gov. Laura Kelly delaying the start of school until after Labor Day, but schools will still have to follow a separate Kelly directive requiring safety measures, including masks and temperature checks.
Still, the Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley and Olathe districts all announced this week they will delay starting until after Labor Day. And in a letter to the state board of education, superintendents from five Johnson County districts — Olathe, Shawnee Mission, De Soto, Spring Hill and Gardner-Edgerton — supported delaying the start of school.
The school board in Kansas City, Kansas, voted to not only delay starting school until after Labor Day but to hold classes online only for the first nine weeks.
Includes reporting from The Star’s Sarah Ritter.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 1:10 PM.
