Online? In person? See how each Johnson County district will start school amid COVID-19
Less than three weeks before the start of school, parents in Johnson County are now learning whether their students will return to classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As coronavirus cases continue to surge in the county, districts are taking different approaches. Some will require all students to take online classes only, while others are sending younger students back to schools.
Blue Valley is the only district that has yet to determine its plan. It is also the only district that decided against following the Johnson County health department’s criteria.
On Tuesday, health officials said the county is in the “red” zone, meaning it recommends older students start school remotely. But Blue Valley will conduct its own study and is expected to announce its reopening plan by the end of the week.
Other districts will take the county’s advice and keep most or all students home when the school year begins:
Here’s what those plans look like:
▪ In Olathe, school officials announced Wednesday they would start with middle and high school students online. But elementary students will return in a hybrid model, going in person part of the time and learning from home the rest of the week so that schools can have a better chance at social distancing.
▪ Both the Shawnee Mission and De Soto districts announced Tuesday they would begin the school year with all students learning online only. Shawnee Mission also suspended all sports, starting on Friday.
▪ Spring Hill and Gardner-Edgerton will have elementary school students in classrooms, unless their families opted for online classes. Older students will take classes online. Spring Hill is the only district that will begin school before Labor Day.
Under Johnson County’s criteria, even in the “red” zone, elementary students could return to class, with social distancing and other precautions. Health officials said, in part, that is because “most young children are unable to stay home safely by themselves.”
The county’s guidance on how to determine when it is safe to bring students back to class includes several reopening phases based on key metrics, including the positivity rate — which is the average percentage of positive COVID-19 tests over a 14-day period — and the number of new cases.
District officials said they will continue to monitor data to determine when it is safe to allow more students back in classrooms. Similar decisions will be made for whether districts allow fall sports.
In the county’s three largest districts, around 30% of students chose to take online classes for the entire first semester. They will stick with that learning plan regardless of what districts decide.
On Tuesday, the Blue Valley school board instructed the district to form a committee that will examine COVID-19 data in Blue Valley ZIP codes. It will create its own plan for how to open schools, based on guidance released by the Kansas State Department of Education, which uses more data points than the county’s criteria.
Across the Kansas City metro, parents and students have protested the decisions made by their districts on how to start the school year. Dozens of residents earlier this week protested outside of the Blue Valley school board meeting, for example, pleading for schools to reopen and for sports to resume.
Lee’s Summit parents scheduled a protest outside the district’s administration building Wednesday night, asking that students be allowed back in classrooms.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
