As recommended, USD 333 closes schools through March 20

Unified School District 333, adhering to the recommendations made by state officials on Sunday, will close all schools through Friday in an effort to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus).
Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson announced that he “strongly recommends that all schools close.”
Governor Laura Kelly, in a news conference on Sunday, reinforced that message.
The state has not yet ordered that schools be closed.
Students in USD 333 were set to return to school Monday following spring break.
Superintendent of schools Quentin Breese originally announced on Sunday that schools would be closed on Monday, and then later made the announcement of the closing through Friday.
The Concordia Afterschool Program will be closed at this time. All activities and athletic practices are also cancelled, along with any outside usage of USD 333 facilities.
The seventh and ninth grade enrollment meetings will be rescheduled. The winter sports banquet scheduled for Tuesday night has been cancelled.
“I think they are focusing on a week for the fact that it is going to buy us some time to see what happens with all of these kids coming back from spring break, seeing what it does to our system statewide,” Breese said.
Concerns were raised about Concordia High School band and choir students who had traveled to Florida, but Breese said there were many other students from the district that traveled all across the United States as well as to other countries.
“We had procedures in place, if we were going to operate school next week, to monitor them,” Breese said.
A statement sent to district parents on Sunday stated that closing all Kansas schools at the same period of time provides all officials the chance to continue to address the latest medical research, help gather information about the virus and hopefully help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, as well as flatten the curve.
“I think that was our first step, to call it off for this week and then reassess through the week to see how we can do this,” Breese said.
Looking past next week, in the event that the decision is made to keep students out of the classrooms past the end of this week, Breese said that district administration will begin meeting with staff later this week to discuss how to put together some kind of an online learning environment with some guidance that will help meet state requirements.
“We want to get our seniors to meet graduation requirements,” Breese said.
Breese said there is more involved than just going online.
“There are just a lot of intricacies with that because you have got special education. Special education, when we are not in session, they don't have to provide services. As soon as we are in session they have to provide services,” Breese said, “Vision impairment, hearing impairment, those kind of services have to be provided if we are in session. Trying to figure out how to do that remotely, or in an online environment, is going to be very difficult. So that is why we are going to kind of use this week to plan.”
In the event that the amount of school missed may result in students falling short of the required 1,116 instructional hours for the year, USD 333 can provide virtual education that meets state requirements for online eduction.
The district could also make up missed time prior to June 30 or make a formal request to the state commissioner of education to waive the 1,116 hours per year requirement.
“I think I can get through this entire week without having to worry about making anything up,” Breese said, “Now I think the state is going to work with us since this was their recommendation.”
USD 333 administration is working on plans in the case that school does not resume next Monday.
“I don't have a crystal ball, but I would anticipate a disruption to regularly scheduled activities and school day hours,” Breese said.
The district administration was also working on possible plans for food service to provide meals to to students during the shutdown.
“We are going to try to come up with a solution for food service today so we can provide kind of our summer meal program,” Breese said.
While the schools are shut down, only district staff that have been determined to be essential are required to be at work.
Those district employees who are not on salary will be paid during the shutdown.
“We will pay the paras and those who are not on salary. We feel that this is the right thing to do,” Breese said, “The delicate thing there is you have people who have to work and then you have people that are going to be able to sit at home and still get paid for it. The way I look at it is, in a time of crisis, we all have roles. My role, and essential personnel's role, is to be at work. The role of those individuals is to be at home right now to help mitigate the spread of this.”
The district administration is asking the general public to adhere to the recommendations of the state: Stay at home as much as possible and practice social distancing. Please try to avoid having additional trips, large gatherings, extra play dates, etc. This isn't an extra spring break, but a chance to help our community, state and nation flatten the curve and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.