Some Wichita middle and high school students return to class as COVID data worsen

Some students at Wichita middle and high schools will return to in-person classes even as coronavirus pandemic indicators worsen in Sedgwick County and Kansas.

Some students in upper grade levels will use a hybrid learning model beginning Nov. 9. Students who chose in-person classes before the school year started will now attend in-person two days a week while staying remote the other three.

Students who originally opted for remote learning will not have the option to use the hybrid plan and must continue remote learning. About 60% of students in the district chose to attend school on-site, but a breakdown by grade level has not been available.

Athletes apparently will still be barred from in-person classes. A previous decision from the school board required students involved in sports and other activities to learn online only during the activity season. The effect of the hybrid decision on sports was not discussed during Tuesday’s school board meeting.

“I believe it is time that we start cautiously moving toward more in-person learning,” said board member Stan Reeser, who made the motion to return some students to class.

The Wichita Public Schools Board of Education voted 4-2 Tuesday evening during a special meeting to make the changes.

Until now all high school and middle school students have been attending school through remote learning.

Nothing changes for elementary school students for now. At the beginning of the school year parents chose to send their children to school full time or have them learn from home full time. Parents will not be able to change the schedules for elementary children until the end of the semester.

The blended model for upper grades calls for half of the students who chose in-person learning to be in classrooms on Mondays and Tuesdays while the other half will be in classrooms on Thursdays and Fridays. The rest of the week would be remote learning. The plan goes into effect on Nov. 9 at the start of the second nine weeks.

The president of the United Teachers of Wichita union expressed concern about the decision.

“I’m sorry, but UTW does not have the confidence that the district will have an effective and safe plan for middle school and high school students and staff in the buildings by Nov. 9,” said Kimberly Howard, president of the teachers union. “... People are tired of this virus, and yet the virus is not tired of us.”

District administrators had discussed a similar hybrid model during the summer before scrapping the idea, declaring it impractical for the state’s largest school district. It is unclear what changed between the summer and the fall that led administrators to revive hybrid learning.

Reeser, Sheril Logan, Julie Hedrick and Ernestine Krehbiel voted for the proposal. Mike Rodee was absent. Ron Rosales and Ben Blankley voted against the plan.

Rosales had suggested implementing it for middle schools while keeping high schools online. Blankley warned that in-person students might still be sent home if there is COVID-19 exposure. Hybrid learning would inevitably lead to some classes being quarantined for 14 days, possibly multiple times during the school year, he said.

“I’m kind of thinking that a hybrid model is the worst of both worlds,” Blankley said, suggesting the in-person classes would be more comparable to a study hall with limited interaction between teachers and students.

Gil Alvarez, assistant superintendent of secondary schools, said teachers will have to teach both remote students and in-person students at the same time.

The district’s presentation to the school board asked rhetorically “can teachers focus on in-person and online students at the same time?” while pointing out that the hybrid model has a “greater potential for COVID spread” compared to staying remote.

Howard, the union president, said teachers believe students need to be in school, but do not want to compromise health and safety.

The BOE should use the school reopening criteria for making decisions about remote and in-person learning, Howard said.

“However, common sense and science indicate a near certainty that the next two or three months will see a significant increase in COVID cases,” Howard said.

“Given that near certainty, given the experiences of our elementary teachers and support staff thus far with a mixed learning model, and given the unanswered questions about the proposed plans for middle and high school, we are very concerned about the district’s readiness to bring middle and high school students back.”

Superintendent Alicia Thompson said that two entire elementary school classrooms have had to quarantine due to COVID-19 exposures, but only after Blankley asked for the information. There was no mention of the COVID-19 clusters reported at neighboring Derby High School, which had a cluster at the school and another with the football team.

Wichita schools have had 189 positive cases, as of Friday’s report from the district. That includes 118 staff and 71 students.

School officials expressed concern for the mental health and educational well-being of students during the pandemic.

“My heart just aches for them, because they’re missing out on being a kid,” Thompson said.

The decision to allow some older students to attend in-person classes some of the week comes as COVID-19 indicators worsen.

The plan was apparently developed by the district’s COVID-19 advisory committee, which has apparently continued to meet in secret.

The district also is bracing for a budget loss of about $11 million, said chief financial officer Susan Willis. Enrollment dropped by 2,621 students, or about 5.26% from last year. The hardest-hit grades were preschool and kindergarten.

The school board largely ignored its gating criteria after Terri Moses, the district’s director of safety and environmental services, said it would be difficult to determine a color zone when USD 259 has one indicator in each of the four colors.

The various COVID-19 indicators and associated color zones were not a focus during the board’s later discussion. They did not choose a color zone. If the board had consulted its guide and set a color zone, the hybrid plan for middle and high schools would have only been permitted in the yellow zone.

Absenteeism was placed in the green zone after Moses said the district is seeing higher levels of attendance this year than last year. The positive test rate was placed in the yellow zone, citing the 8.40% reported on Monday by the Sedgwick County Health Department. The 14-day rolling average of positive test rates rose to 9.40% on Tuesday.

The district’s criteria doesn’t hit the red zone until the positive test rate passes 15%, but that threshold was set over the summer when medical professionals said there was an inadequate level of testing. The White House COVID-19 task force, which is providing supplies for hundreds of thousands of coronavirus tests to Kansas, puts the test rate red zone at 10%.

The county incidence rate, which is a measure of new cases compared to population, was in the red zone at 237 new cases per 100,000 population over the past two weeks, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The red zone starts at a rate of above 150 new cases.

The trend in the incidence rate was in both the orange zone and the red zone, depending on whether state or local health department data was used.

“We are stuck in yellow/orange and we will be stuck in yellow/orange for a long time,” Reeser said. “... So we cannot continue down this path of only remote 100% for any more time, in my opinion.”

The Sedgwick County numbers were actually improving until the middle of September, about two weeks after Labor Day and after most Wichita area schools reopened. The positive test rate dropped into the green zone, the trend in the case rate was green and the case rate dipped into orange zone for the first time in months.

But all three of those indicators are worse now than when the school year started.

This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 9:21 PM.