Wichita schools warn parents of potential school closures amid COVID teacher shortage
Wichita Public Schools are warning parents they may have to close schools temporarily if there aren’t enough healthy teachers to keep students learning in-person.
“Our district is facing a staffing crisis because of the community spread of COVID following the holidays,” Superintendent Alicia Thompson told parents in a Tuesday email.
“Most significantly, we are closely monitoring school data to determine whether staffing challenges due to COVID warrant consideration of temporary school closure.”
According to the district’s most recent data, 172 staff were positive for the virus between Dec. 30 and Jan. 5 — more than three times as many positive cases among staff as at any other point since the school year began in August.
Thompson said the district hopes to give parents two to three days’ notice before closing schools, but she couldn’t promise decisions won’t be made more quickly.
“Based on what we see happening in our district and our community, that notification could be provided one day to take effect the following day,” Thompson said.
The district’s MySchool Remote program implemented last school year is not available to students this year, after a decision by the Kansas Legislature to limit the amount of time students spend learning remotely.
“We know that a transition like this may have a negative impact on our families,” Thompson said. “However, it is vitally important that you have a plan in place now in the event that data indicators at your school cause us to send all students home for several days.”
Hoping to provide relief to understaffed districts across Kansas, the state board of education voted Wednesday to ease application requirements for substitute teachers. Potential subs no longer need college credit hours to apply for an emergency substitute teaching license in the state.
Anybody 18 or older with a high school diploma who can pass a background check is eligible to substitute teach for the rest of the school year if they also have a verified employment commitment from a district.
On Jan. 6, 399 of Wichita Public Schools’ 7,632 employees were in quarantine, according to district data. That tops the previous high of 247 staff quarantines on Sept. 8.
In Thompson’s email to parents, she also noted that the district is shortening its mandatory isolation period for confirmed COVID cases from a minimum of 10 days to a minimum of five days to align with controversial new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If the positive individual is fever free for 24 hours without medication, AND if the positive individual has resolving symptoms (meaning, symptoms are improving), then the individual can return to work/school as early as day 6 (day 0 is first day of symptoms),” Thompson said.
“If the student/staff member is not fever free for 24 hours without medication AND feeling better by day 5, then the individual must continue to remain at home until they have met the 24 hours of being fever free with resolving symptoms.”
The Wichita school board, which sets the district’s COVID-19 safety protocols, has required everyone 3 years and older to wear face masks in schools since last August. However, newly elected board members have indicated they want to do away with the mask mandate.
School board President Stan Reeser suspended Monday evening’s meeting without calling it to order because three members refused to put on masks when asked. The meeting has since been rescheduled for next Tuesday.
Last week in the Wichita area, 6,700 people tested positive for COVID-19, Sedgwick County Health Officer Dr. Garold Minns told the Wichita City Council on Tuesday. That’s up from about 1,600 two weeks earlier.
On Jan. 10, Wesley and Ascension Via Christi hospitals reported a combined 253 COVID patients, the most since a pandemic-high 273 patients on Nov. 30.
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 2:44 PM.