After going fully remote, Wichita school board may consider bringing its students back

A rise in community COVID-19 cases and staff shortages because of quarantine prompted the Wichita Board of Education to send its students home last month. Now the board may be asked at its Monday meeting to bring them back, according to an email sent to employees by Superintendent Alicia Thompson.

The email says that the “administration is considering a recommendation” that would bring elementary school students back on Jan. 13, pre-K students back on Jan. 14 and then a blended model for middle and high school would start Jan. 25. The blended model would have different groups of students learning in person on different days.

Middle and high schools have been remote since the start of the school year.

“Families will not see any changes if they selected the remote learning model for their student, are enrolled in Education Imagine Academy, or have a student who is already onsite being served through a temporary services plan,” the email says.

Staff would return Jan. 13. A representative from the United Teacher of Wichita union did not immediately respond to a call from The Eagle.

Terri Moses, Wichita schools director of safety and environmental services, said teachers miss their students and want to come back but safely.

The driver behind the recommendation is to allow flexibility for students who learn better in-person versus remote.

She said the district sent everyone home last month because of a problem with staff availability due to quarantine from possible exposure, not because of rampant COVID-19 cases in the schools.

“We don’t see that right now in terms of our numbers,” she said. “Yes, we do have staff that have covid but the largest number we had had earlier .. is through quarantine.”

When asked if returning students are just going to lead to more cases and quarantine, Moses said she is not jumping to that conclusion.

“We haven’t seen the spread within our schools,” she said. “We’ve seen community spread.”

The district’s data show that prior to the start of class, staff was diagnosed with COVID-19 at a rate slightly lower than Sedgwick County as a whole. Once classes started and before the district went entirely remote, school staff got COVID-19 at a rate about 96% higher than the community.

She said that was The Eagle’s interpretation of the data, which used figures from the district.

“I haven’t seen the comparison,” she said, adding that if cases and quarantines increase “we will have to pivot again.”

Wichita Public Schools data shows there have been 885 COVID-19 cases among staff, 184 for on-site students and 311 among remote students. Currently, 622 staff are quarantined, according to the district’s dashboard.

This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 1:48 PM.