Hutchinson schools to go hybrid after ‘significant increase’ in COVID-19 cases
Hutchinson students will start attending school under a hybrid model next week after health officials reported a “significant increase” in COVID-19 cases, according to a letter sent to parents and guardians Thursday.
“We do not know at this point how long we will be in hybrid,” USD 308 spokesman Ray Hemman said in an email.
In the hybrid model, students alternate being at school or remote Monday through Thursday. All students will be remote on Fridays.
The school district and Reno County health officials created a gating criteria for measuring community spread of the virus and how the district should respond. The district changes where students learn based on the case rate in Reno County during the past two weeks and/or percent of positive cases during that time.
The hybrid model is implemented when the county is in an orange zone, which means there have been 119-170 new cases per 100,000 people and/or a positive test rate of 10.7-15% — both of which are higher than the Kansas State Department of Education criteria.
The department says the orange zone is having 101-150 new cases per 100,000 people or a positive test rate of 10-14.9% during the last two weeks. In the orange zone, the department recommends hybrid for kindergarten through fifth grades, remote for sixth through 12th grades and no sports.
Reno County is in the yellow zone for the positive test rate and red for the case rate for the two weeks of Sept. 13-26, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s latest available data. From best to worst, the four zones are green, yellow, orange and red.
The letter sent to parents and guardians, and signed by Superintendent Mike Folks, says that sports will continue.
“We understand this creates hardships on families,” he said. “We believe this is the best solution for keeping our students in classes and activities long-term.”
Folks said more information will be released to parents and guardians on Friday.