As 60% of Johnson County schools report COVID cases, guidance for returning is eased
The Johnson County health department has issued more lenient guidance on whether school districts should allow older students back into classrooms when there is high community spread of COVID-19.
Unlike under the previous criteria, districts could now allow middle and high schoolers to return to in-person learning in a hybrid model — going to class part time and taking online classes for the rest of the week — as long as safety precautions are implemented. The guidance for elementary students has remained the same, as officials continue to recommend they can return to classrooms full time.
The new recommendations come less than one month after the school year began, and amid continual protests for districts to allow all students to learn in person, five days a week.
“The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment (JCDHE) will update school gating criteria based on emerging information and community input,” officials said in a news release. “Many schools in Johnson County have also gone back to learning in some form and are implementing public health strategies to prevent transmission of COVID-19.”
Coronavirus transmission remains high in Johnson County. Last week, the county reported roughly 113 new cases on average each day. Epidemiologist Elizabeth Holzschuh said that was the third highest new case count since the beginning of the pandemic. And cases have been rising among children under the age of 19 and showing up in schools.
Even with many students still learning online, 104 of Johnson County’s 169 public schools, or more than 60%, have implemented at least one quarantine after a COVID-19 exposure, officials said Thursday. In one Blue Valley elementary school, more than 100 people were instructed to quarantine last month.
“These quarantines can be for a variety of reasons: athletics, school exposure, outside exposure, from staff or students,” Holzschuh told the board of commissioners at its weekly meeting Thursday. “The goal is to keep (schools) open in a safe manner. We know there will be cases. This is not surprising to us. The goal is not to have that widespread transmission and those cases pop up throughout the school.”
Districts decide whether to follow the county’s recommendations, and several school boards have already opted not to. Blue Valley and De Soto, for example, have decided to instead follow the state department of education’s guidance. Some board members questioned the data the county based its recommendations on.
De Soto is the only district in the county that has already allowed older students to return to class part time. Blue Valley has announced plans to bring older students back in a hybrid model on Oct. 5.
Even districts that are following the county’s criteria, like Shawnee Mission, have decided not to abide by it when making decisions regarding sports. The district and others in the county have allowed high school sports to resume, despite health officials warning against it. In the new criteria, the county has removed its recommendation on when to allow sports.
Previous criteria released by the health department shows the county is in the “red” zone, meaning officials warned against middle and high schoolers returning to in-person school. That recommendation was largely based on the positivity rate, or the percentage of positive tests over the past 14 days. On Thursday, that rate was 11.9%.
For county health officials to recommend that it is safe for all students to return to class full time, that rate would need to be lower than 5%.
But now the county has updated its recommendations, adding an “orange” zone to the criteria that allows for older students to return to classrooms part-time as long as schools implement safety protocols, such as masks and social distancing. That clears the way for some districts to possibly bring older students back in schools sooner than they otherwise might have.
The new criteria also looks at the positivity rate as a key metric. But it also adds a new metric: the incidence rate, or the number of new cases per 100,000 residents. In the past seven days, county data show there were more than 126 cases per 100,000 people.
The “orange” zone represents “high risk” conditions, according to the criteria. To fall in that zone, the county’s positivity rate would need to be between 10% and 15%, and the incidence rate over the past 14 days would need to be between 151 an 250 per 100,000 people.
On Friday, officials said, updated data will be available for districts to determine what “zone” the county is in. But under the new criteria, officials would only recommend that all students learn online if the positivity rate is greater than 15% and the incidence rate is more than 251 cases per 100,000 residents.
Under the criteria, in order for health officials to advise districts that they can bring older students back to school buildings, they would need several safety precautions in place. They include a mask requirement, social distancing and daily symptom screening.
“In general, the risk of exposure is lower when community transmission is low. However, JCDHE recognizes that while measures of the level of transmission are very critical criteria, they are not the only measure that should be taken into consideration. A measure that should be included is how well the school district is prepared to implement mitigation measures and reduce widespread transmission,” officials said in the release.
At Thursday’s board of commissioners meeting, Sanmi Areola, public health director, said that the health department and school nurses already are overwhelmed with the number of new COVID-19 cases.
“Activity of the virus is very, very high in the county,” Areola said. “Because of the demand and number of cases, and the need to isolate and need to quarantine, we already have strained school resources. Public health resources are getting even more strained. Our school nurses are absolutely overwhelmed. Those are things to consider as schools make the decisions.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 7:48 PM.
