School officials remain hopeful
With school starting back up in just over a month for many local school districts, the question of whether the fall semester will take place in classrooms remains unanswered.
The fall semester for USD 320 Wamego is scheduled to begin on August 20 and USD 323 Rock Creek is looking to start up on August 14.
Tim Winter, superintendent for USD 320 Wamego, says even though a lot can change between now and then, he is hopeful that classes will take place in an in-person setting.
“I am still going to remain ever optimistic that we will have students in school and students in classrooms and carrying out school activities as we would in any August and hopefully moving forward,” Winter said. “That may include masks and other provisions, but I’m hopeful we’ll have teachers and students back in our classrooms.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly made the decision back in March to cancel school for the remainder of the spring semester due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, students of all ages have taken classes through an online setting, an experience known as distance learning.
According to Winter, even though some students may do well in a virtual environment, parents of students tend to prefer in-person classes.
“Overall, that socialization, being in contact with your peers and the interaction, based on our data, is much preferred for our parents,” Winter said. “It also relieves the pressure of them having to be a teacher in the home, having to juggle schedules of work and school at home.”
The setting of the fall semester isn’t the only part of the school still in question, as some upcoming decisions could have an impact on the date for the first day of school.
The USD 323 Rock Creek Board of Education will discuss during a July 22 meeting whether to go with a competency-based learning plan during the fall semester.
Doing so could impact the school district’s Aug. 14 start date.
“If we would go with the competency-based (learning plan), we may have to push that back a couple of days just to get some additional PD (professional development) in for our teachers to be ready to go because, from my understanding, it will be a significant departure from what we do in the classroom,” Kevin Logan, superintendent for USD 323 Rock Creek, said.
The USD 320 Wamego Board of Education will also hold a meeting this Monday to discuss switching from a having a required number of school days in a school year to having a required number of school hours.
“That’s significant because if we do have to go to blended learning or remote learning, that does come into play on whether we’ll meet that (hour) requirement and whether we’ll have to apply for some kind of waiver if we’re having kids in their homes learning,” Winter said.
Current Kansas Department of Education policy requires school years for students in kindergarten through 11th grade to last at least 186 days or 1,116 hours for first through 11th graders and 465 hours for kindergartners0.
School years for high school seniors must last at least 181 days or 1,086 hours.
The Wamego Board of Education will also review state guidance on the upcoming school year that is set to be released this week.
Rock Creek and Wamego fall sports
Although a decision has not been made about whether fall sports and activities will take place for local schools this fall, summer workouts are well under way.
USD 320 Wamego students and staff involved in these workouts are being asked to wear face masks.
“What we’ve defined is when the workout environment is light, (whether) it’s stretching, warming up or maybe it’s some of the lifting and so forth and there’s teaching and instruction going on where students aren’t heavily exerting themselves physically, then we’re asking them to wear a mask,” Winter said.
The temperatures of student and staff are being taken as well. Face masks are not required during workouts that include a large amount of physical exertion.
Rock Creek High School basketball camps have been canceled due to social-distancing concerns.
According to Logan, if fall activities end up being canceled as well, the emotional and mental impact will be larger than the financial impact.
“Our middle-school events, our high-school events, with people coming out, they are the main social gathering,” Logan said. “In a lot of cases, in our size of schools, we are the only game in town for Fridays and Saturdays, and Tuesday nights when basketball season hits, for people to get out and socially intermix.”
All Kansas high-school spring sports were canceled in March due to COVID-19 concerns.
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