By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays USD 489 school district will still be opening Wednesday with in-person classes, despite the spike in COVID-19 numbers reported Monday in Ellis County.
Hays USD 489 Superintendent Ron Wilson spoke with school board Monday night about a document developed by the Kansas Department of Environment to help school districts determine if they should move to remote or hybrid learning.
"As we are right on the cusp of starting school, there have been a lot of questions about how we are going to determine what phase we are in and how we look at restrictions in our community," Wilson said.
"We had a little bit of a shock moment today as numbers were released, and we had over 70 new cases today in Ellis County," Wilson said. "I am sure there is some concern from our community how safe it is."
Although the increase of 72 cases would put the Hays school district in the orange level, Wilson said more factors needed to be taken into consideration than just the instances of COVID in the county.
Wilson met with Ellis County Public Health Officer Jason Kennedy on Sunday afternoon and talked through the numbers.
Most of the numbers that were reported on Monday were the result of voluntary testing of Fort Hays State University students and staff. More than 500 tests were provided. Most of the students were sent tests before they came to campus, Wilson said.
Kennedy said Monday FHSU students residing in Ellis County are counted as cases locally.
"We are concerned, but at the same time, the one thing we determined in our conversations was that there really was no risk at us looking at starting this week," Wilson said.
He continued, "I have been visiting with staff this week and the one thing that I have really tried to make sure everyone understood is that we are going to have cases in our schools. It will happen."
The district has developed a plan over the last several months. He compared that COVID-19 plan to plans schools have to evacuate children and staff in case of a fire. He said it is amazing how quickly and smoothly students can be evacuated from a building using a plan.
"I tell staff if we would suddenly divert from that plan and have someone run down the hall and scream, 'Fire, fire, get out! You gotta get out!' we would probably have a different scenario where people would be running and knocking people over. The reason that would not be successful because we would not be following the plan we put in place.
"If we can get through the first month and not pull the fire alarm, so to speak, I think we can really build confidence that we can get through this and grind through this," Wilson said.
Wilson said the district's No. 1 priority is to keep students and staff as healthy and safe as possible.
A group will meet every Tuesday morning to review the gating criteria. Members of that group include school administrators, Kennedy and local physicians.
The group hopes to release any changes in the learning model on Wednesdays with the changes taking affect on a Monday. Wilson said this will give families several days to make adjustments to a change in learning model.
The group will look at a variety of factors, including student absenteeism, two-week county percent positive rate, two-week county cumulative incidence rate, trend data, local hospital capacity and staff absenteeism.
Wilson quoted Kennedy who said it is not all just a certain number. He calls it a little bit of science and a little bit of art.
The art piece is the story behind all of those numbers, Wilson said.
"I have been saying over and over that our No. 1 dilemma may be staffing," Wilson said, "and having enough staff to adequately provide for the student instruction and all of the support that is required to run a school. That is one that will have a lot of weighting."
Board member Craig Pallister asked Wilson what the district will do to notify the public if there are positive cases associated with schools.
Wilson said a student athlete tested positive last week, and those who were affected were notified. He said the same would happen if someone tests positive at a school.
Board member Tammy Wellbrock said she appreciated all the hard work school officials are doing on COVID-19 planning. She said she also appreciated the input she has received from the public.
"It is our desire to try to create the safest, most healthy, but also positive learning experience for our students of all ages as well as the staff and the employees that are impacted," she said.
"I think at this time we are all in support of you and the decisions made. I think we have proven we have the ability to be flexible."