Wichita students, athletes ‘doing a really fine job’ wearing masks, superintendent says

The superintendent for Wichita Public Schools said students and athletes are doing a good job wearing their face masks.

Superintendent Alicia Thompson told the Board of Education during a meeting Monday evening that USD 259 officials had heard concerns before the school year started about whether children would be able to follow health guidelines.

“I went to visit some schools last week and I went to some ballgames this weekend, and our students are wearing their masks,” Thompson said. “Even the little bitty people, they’re wearing their masks and they’re doing a really fine job. We really appreciate families and parents working with their kids on how to keep them on and the teachers working with them on those skills to be able to not touch them and do all the things that we need to do.”

“And I want to give a shout out to our coaches and our athletes and things that were out this weekend on the way that they handled themselves,” she said. “They had their masks on and they were doing the right things to try to make sure that everyone was safe. ... I’m really proud of our students and our teachers.”

Last week, Sedgwick County commissioners revoked an order by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly mandating protective face masks in schools to control the spread of the coronavirus. A Sedgwick County mask order and a Wichita mask ordinance are still in effect.

By overruling the governor, Sedgwick County now permits students and teachers to wear clear plastic face shields instead of masks. Commissioners were concerned that young children may have a harder time learning to properly form words if they can’t see the teacher’s lips moving. However, researchers have found that face shields are not effective in the fight against COVID-19.

The action by the commission also revoked the governor’s requirement for fever checks to enter school buildings and a directive that students and educators disinfect their hands on an hourly basis.

The governor said last week that she feared large outbreaks at schools. Several public school districts in the Wichita area started classes last week.

In the latest weekly report on COVID-19 cases at Wichita schools, the district listed one new employee at an elementary as testing positive. There were 35 more employees district-wide who were placed under quarantine following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of Friday, there were 180 total employees under quarantine out of about 7,308 on-site employees.

The superintendent, while speaking on safety during the coronavirus pandemic, suggested that district officials have received reports of some people not following health rules and guidelines. She specifically reminded people to wear face masks while inside buildings “making sure that we’re keeping all employees safe” and suggested that violators be reported to administrators.

“We’ve got to start making sure that if we’re not doing what we need to do in those buildings, we need to know where, who, what, when and how so that we can begin to tighten up that,” she said. “Everybody needs to have some grace, we talked about that, we talked about giving people the opportunities to get used to things that were happening in the building and now we need to begin and say ‘OK we’ve had that time.’ I’m talking about safety purposes … I’m talking about masks in particular.”

This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 7:49 PM.