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 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1593719779701.jpeg" alt="Sharon Hartin Iorio is Dean Emerita Wichita State University College of Education." />
 <figcaption>Sharon Hartin Iorio is Dean Emerita Wichita State University College of Education.</figcaption>
 </figure>COVID-19 is threatening the way Kansas schools do their work.&nbsp;&nbsp;Randy Watson, state education commissioner, told members of the Kansas Association of School Boards recently that the way schools deliver education currently is “not sustainable.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Although 1A to small 4A schools are returning to traditional five-day-a-week on-site classes because they can keep class sizes to fewer than 15 and require masks and social distancing, most larger schools are obliged to operate differently.&nbsp;&nbsp;They are using all online, remote or hybrid models where students alternate attending on-site for part of the week and study remotely the remainder of the week.&nbsp;&nbsp;Kansas is not alone in this. These school schedules are in operation from California to South Carolina to comply with COVID-19 safety measures.&nbsp;&nbsp;Outside the small on-site schools, almost no one is satisfied.&nbsp;&nbsp;Students not only miss their friends and the social learning that comes with that; they have trouble working successfully with remote learning and often need at home help.&nbsp;&nbsp;Yet, the adults in their lives are either overextended from working at home and supporting their children’s learning or work outside the home and cannot be there to help their children.&nbsp;&nbsp;Teachers are extremely overloaded with instruction for both on-site and remote lessons while grappling with new distance-learning technology.&nbsp;&nbsp;Administrators are overwhelmed with the details involved in implementing the changes and constant fluctuation in school-wide COVID-19 infections, plus everyone wants a stable football schedule.&nbsp;&nbsp;People just wish things to get back to normal, but they can’t completely.&nbsp;&nbsp;The education system was totally unprepared for COVID-19.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the midst of a statewide teacher shortage, schools hadn’t fully recovered from the Brownback years.&nbsp;&nbsp;Teachers and students didn’t have new learning technology or know how to use it.&nbsp;&nbsp;Class sizes in city schools could push the high 20s.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Schools needed better health safety protection including more effective HVAC air filtering.Pressed to meet the COVID-19 challenge, Watson has offered ways to get back on-site fulltime:&nbsp;&nbsp;Use school gyms and libraries and community venues like churches for classrooms to provide enough social distancing.&nbsp;&nbsp;Assign non-teaching personnel, retired teachers and substitutes as teachers for the added classrooms and provide district contingency funds for one year and federal COVID-19 funding to cover the added expenses.&nbsp;&nbsp;Watson should be commended for working within existing financial resources to bring traditional schooling back.&nbsp;&nbsp;Additional support will come from Governor Kelly’s new Office of Broadband Development with $49 million of CARES Act funding, some of which will benefit the estimated 156,000 Kansas students who lack online access to complete their assignments.&nbsp;&nbsp;CARES Act funding also will also improve school cleaning and PPE.&nbsp;Even with these improvements there are not enough extant resources to run hybrid models successfully or return to safe on-site learning for medium-to-large schools while the pandemic rages.&nbsp;&nbsp;Neither are there enough instructional resources to restore the academic achievement students lost while at home this spring and summer.&nbsp;&nbsp;There’s no easy solution—it’s wrong to return to fulltime school without following COVID-19 safety rules and it’s wrong to make everyday people—children, parents, teachers, school administrators--endure an unmanageable situation because of COVID-19’s effect on schools.Next week, U.S. Senate Republicans plan to bring to a vote additional stimulus legislation that includes help for public schools.&nbsp;&nbsp;While it won’t solve all the problems, All Kansans should press our legislators to back this funding.&nbsp;Sharon Hartin Iorio is Dean Emerita Wichita State University College of Education.

INSIGHT KANSAS: Living with COVID-19 is challenging Kan. schools