Data-driven decisions — really? Wichita school leaders are ignoring COVID-19 advice
Wichita school district leaders have a heavy decision to make this week: whether and how to resume in-person instruction during a public health emergency.
None of the options are great.
Sending students back to crowded classrooms, hallways, cafeterias and playgrounds is almost certain to spread the coronavirus. Wichita schools started seeing cases as soon as teachers returned to work.
Keeping students home would create a child-care crisis for many parents — particularly working mothers — and could widen racial and economic learning gaps.
Unfortunately, leaders who consistently pride themselves on making data-driven decisions seemed to downplay and even disparage science when they formulated their proposed back-to-school plan, suggesting a return to in-person school for most students and a resumption of high-risk sports and other activities.
During a workshop Monday, board member Mike Rodee asked if the positive test percentage in Sedgwick County, which sits at more than 11%, included asymptomatic people. Then he suggested that people without symptoms are not really infected with the virus.
Rodee, who represents a large swath of west Wichita, declared that he didn’t trust data from the Sedgwick County Health Department.
He said he’s “afraid of the flu shot” and other vaccines. He said he doesn’t trust drug companies. He said most gating criteria guidelines were from biased sources. He said the board should “come up with our own numbers.”
Rodee said a positive test rate of less than 15% should be good enough for a return to in-person school. He later suggested 25%.
Where to begin?
Guidance from the Kansas State Department of Education puts Sedgwick County in the orange zone — a step below red, which is the most restrictive — in terms of positive test rates.
Other criteria, including the per-capita number of new COVID-19 cases, put us in the red zone for reopening schools. That means remote learning for all students, regardless of age or grade level.
Under the Wichita board’s proposed scenario, students in kindergarten through eighth grade would return to school buildings, although families still could choose the My School Remote online option. High school students would be remote-only for at least the first nine weeks.
Board members will approve a final plan Thursday.
And while Rodee’s comments were on the extreme end of return-at-any-cost, other board members also seemed quick to ignore medical guidance.
Most troubling is their insistence on moving forward with high school sports and other extracurricular activities — even if in-person school is too risky.
State and local health officials say that under current conditions, “high-risk” activities such as football, soccer, band and choir should not happen. Group travel should be off-limits as well.
But the district’s athletic director urged board members to ignore that advice and even allow spectators at some events, insisting that sports are too important to cancel and that Wichita schools can ensure students’ safety.
“I can’t argue with their recommendations, but I have seen where it has been able to work,” J. Means said.
“I would almost actually say it is more important (to have sports) if we go completely remote, because . . . we would have all these kids that could still have that connection with their coaches, with their teammates, working together.”
Sure, that sounds great. Unfortunately, as doctors and public health experts must continue to stress, we are in the midst of a pandemic. The virus has infected 5.4 million people in the United States and killed more than 170,000.
Major League Baseball, the NBA and other professional leagues are struggling to contain COVID-19, even while banning all fans from their stadiums. College conferences are shortening or postponing seasons.
Why should Wichita schools cross their fingers and hope for the best when the consequences of a coronavirus outbreak are so dire?
It’s not just high schools where social distancing is a challenge. Some Wichita K-8 and middle schools have 1,000 students or more — and districts elsewhere in the country have shown what can happen with crowded hallways.
As of Tuesday, 20 of the nation’s 25 largest school districts have chosen remote learning as their back-to-school model for all students. Schools in Topeka, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Denver, Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., are not sending students back into buildings just yet because their COVID-19 rates are too alarming.
Sedgwick County’s are, too. But during Monday’s school board discussion — where board members were separated by Plexiglas shields and members of the public were barred from the lecture hall — child care and other concerns trumped health and safety.
No one’s saying this school year will be easy, but it needs to be as safe as possible. COVID-19 is a dangerous virus and a known killer. For the sake of students, teachers and community members at greatest risk for the disease, school leaders must err on the side of science.