Leavenworth school board rejects superintendent’s recommendation for online classes
The Leavenworth school board rejected a recommendation from the district’s superintendent Wednesday that would have moved students online for remote learning for the remainder of the semester.
A special meeting was held after the district received the latest COVID-19 data from the Leavenworth County Health Department to determine what to do about in-person classes.
The vote countered gating criteria — including the community’s COVID-19 positive test rate, total number of cases and daily case average — the board used at the beginning of the fall semester.
In early November, Leavenworth County was in the yellow zone for all three metrics, but by Nov. 16, it had moved into the red zone. Gating criteria for the district said middle and high school students should go remote in the red zone.
Superintendent Mike Roth said keeping faculty and students safe was a critical factor in putting forth a recommendation to go virtual.
Projections indicate the numbers will only worsen, Roth said.
Another major challenge has been staffing.
In October, there were 27 teacher absences that did not have a substitute to cover for them. This month, there have been 64.
“We were robbing other areas of the educational system to make sure that as many classrooms could be filled with people, adults that understand the educational system, that could work with kids and give them the best education possible,” Roth said. “We’ve already pulled interventions — we’ve already pulled instructional coaches, we’ve already pulled counselors and anybody that we could.”
Combining classes wasn’t a good idea because it cross-exposes cohort groups, he added.
Board members expressed concern about the students’ mental health, grades that had deteriorated and the burden remote learning places on families.
Board member Judi Price said remote learning has resulted in “learning loss.”
“I just have great concerns if we go all remote because of how disastrously it went and it’s showing in our students’ grades now,” she said. “I can just imagine what it’s like for kids who don’t have a parent at home, who don’t have a parent that’s invested in their education, how it’s going to go for them. We already have a lot of at-risk students, families.”
She suggested recruiting adult volunteers from the community to help the staffing issue.
“I am vehemently against anything that’s going to take our kids back out of the classrooms,” said board member John Goodman. “If we have to have a snow day or multiple snow days to handle the manning issues, then that’s what we have to do. I’m willing to drive this bus until the wheels fall off. Our kids need to stay in school.”
A motion to switch to online classes from Nov. 30 through the end of the semester failed on a 2-5 vote.
“I would suggest that the board needs to look very carefully at next Monday’s (COVID) numbers and I think it’s going to be even worse,” said board president Doug Darling.
