Another district in Kansas City region cancels school due to COVID, staff shortage
Another school district in the Kansas City region is closing schools this week as it cannot find enough substitute teachers to staff classrooms amid COVID-19 outbreaks.
The Eudora school district in Douglas County announced that it canceled classes on Friday because of so many cases among students and staff.
In addition, the De Soto district in Johnson County canceled classes on Friday because not enough teachers are available.
In a letter to families, Eduora Superintendent Stu Moeckel wrote that, “an additional challenge that has reached a peak is that our pool of qualified and licensed substitute teachers is in very short supply.”
“When available, our substitute teachers do an incredible job of working with our students to ensure that learning continues and that our classrooms are positive, productive, and safe,” the superintendent wrote. “Our current reality is that we simply do not have enough substitutes to appropriately maintain operations.”
Officials with the Manhattan-Ogden school district, west of Topeka, also said that schools would be closed on Friday due to difficulties staffing classrooms.
On Wednesday, the Bonner Springs Edwardsville school district in Wyandotte County announced it would cancel school on Thursday and Friday because nearly a quarter of students had fallen ill from COVID-19 and other illnesses.
COVID-19 cases, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, are hitting record highs throughout the Kansas City metro, leading hospitals to reach capacity.
The surge in new cases is hitting school districts especially hard, exacerbating existing staffing shortages. Teachers, administrators and others have been giving up their breaks and planning time to fill in when there is no substitute available.
In an effort to keep schools open, the Kansas State Board of Education on Wednesday temporarily lowered the requirements for substitute teaching licenses so that college credit is no longer necessary. Missouri had already taken similar measures.
In Eudora, Moeckel said that closing schools on Friday should help the district “hit a reset, as we can no longer sustain classroom coverage internally when substitutes are not available.”
Schools were already scheduled to be closed on Monday, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and were expected to reopen Tuesday.
“Please afford us grace as we work to problem-solve this challenge and know that student safety and student learning are at the forefront of our decision-making in these instances,” the superintendent said. “We implore you to help over the long weekend by exercising best mitigation practices. Together we will overcome this.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
