How many students were MIA during COVID-19? Wichita doesn’t know — or won’t say

When Wichita students and teachers headed home for spring break in March, they didn’t know they wouldn’t return to classrooms for the rest of the school year.

Then COVID-19 arrived in Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly ordered schools closed, and the state’s largest district scrambled to keep kids learning through the pandemic.

The challenge was immense, and district leaders met it with calm determination. Within days, schools were distributing free curbside meals to needy children. Teachers, administrators, counselors and social workers tried contacting families by phone, email, snail mail and social media — “any means necessary,” one principal told us, including calls to friends of friends — and lessons continued to whatever extent possible.

But they couldn’t reach every student.

Wichita-area school districts, like many around the nation, lost track of some students altogether during the coronavirus pandemic due to wrong numbers, out-of-date contact information or families’ failure to respond to messages.

So how many students effectively disappeared for the last quarter of the school year?

We have no idea.

District officials either don’t know or won’t say — at least they haven’t yet, nearly three weeks after the academic year wrapped up — and their reticence is troubling.

Last month, The Eagle filed a request under the Kansas Open Records Act for the number of USD 259 students for whom there had been no contact with teachers from the start of state-ordered school closures in March until the end of the school year May 21.

We wanted to know the extent of the challenge facing Wichita schools when the next year begins. We also wondered how many children had potentially lost access to one of their most important safety nets against abuse and neglect.

The district denied the records request, saying its “staff is analyzing data and preparing a report” for board members that they expect to complete by next week.

That means we still don’t know how vast some learning gaps might be when schools resume educational efforts — whatever form those may take — in the fall.

“We know that we have schools where chronic absenteeism was a challenge before the COVID crisis ever hit, and COVID’s not going to fix that,” said district spokesperson Wendy Johnson.

“We expect that we’ll see indicators that would support some of those same trends.”

We expect the district already has indicators, at least individual school-level data, and has opted not to share that with board members or the public.

Why the hesitancy? Why not be open and upfront about the extent of the problem? Does the district want to make sure we’re sitting down before delivering the diagnosis, before revealing how many students essentially dropped out of school in mid-March?

Or do they not know? If so, that’s even more troubling.

Most districts, including Wichita, have acknowledged for years that students with lots of absences — even excused absences, and even just a few days per nine weeks — miss crucial instruction, which increases their chances of falling behind and ultimately dropping out.

For more than a decade, Wichita has carefully tracked chronic absenteeism and launched numerous strategies — including a multi-year effort with United Way of the Plains — to make sure kids get to school and stay through the final bell.

School officials realized then, as they must now, that you can’t begin solving a problem if you don’t first acknowledge how bad it is.

The New York Times reported recently that the nation’s abrupt switch to remote learning wiped out academic gains for many students in America and widened racial and economic gaps.

Education experts say gaps in student contact information — a complaint Wichita officials echo frequently when they urge families to update addresses, phone numbers and emails — put vulnerable children at even greater risk.

“The cracks in the formal systems meant to protect children have become chasms,” Education Week reported in April. “Some students have disappeared into them, and educators have limited resources to find out where these children and their families might be.”

One thing is certain: Catching up in the fall won’t be easy.

As school board members plan for the coming year, it’s crucial that they and the community have a complete picture of what we’ll be facing.

This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 12:51 PM.