The Platte County R-3 school district is moving forward with a plan to return to full in-person learning next week beginning on Monday, March 1.
Board members got an update at the regular board meeting last Thursday, Feb. 18, about the current numbers. The board held two special meetings earlier in February to discuss the reopening plan.
“Plans are under way, numbers continue to lower,” R-3 Superintendent Dr. Mike Reik told board members. “I don’t have any information that would cause you to change direction at this time.”
The only board member to vote against the plan was Alisha Elliot.
Dr. Jay Harris, executive director of operations, told board members at a special meeting held on Friday, Feb. 12, that student attendance districtwide has been over 90 percent since students returned from the winter break and that student quarantine numbers are low.
“The number of positive cases in our district is the lowest it’s been all year long,” Harris said.
Reik said the Platte County Health Department continues to be on board and that he was expecting to get something in writing soon.
At a special meeting held earlier in the month district staff warned board members that returning to full in-person learning would cause positive numbers to go up and that quarantines would likely double.
Harris said at last week’s school board meeting that staff at all buildings have been working hard to get ready for the students’ return. Harris said the district has made upgrades to air purification systems and changed filters.
“We’re being creative and finding ways to make sure we’re as safe as we can be,” Harris said. “We’ve done a lot of things to maintain as safe of an environment as we can. We feel good about the process and looking at the progress.”
One board member asked if there’s been any feedback from teachers about a full return. Reik said he hasn’t heard much and said there’s a lot of distractions that could be playing into that. Nevertheless he views it as a good sign.
“It’s been relatively quiet,” Reik said. “I think there’s some things distracting them. We’ve changed a couple of times so I think there’s some who are waiting to see if it really happens. I think they see what we see; they see the numbers lowering. It’s been pretty quiet and I’ve taken that as a good sign.”
Administrators were also asked if any families had objections to going to full-time. Assistant superintendent Dr. Mike Brown said five families said they would want to go to remote learning with three families expressing the opposite.
“So far it’s balanced out and hopefully it stays that way,” Brown said.
One logistic issue administrators are having a hard time getting around is class sizes for science and social studies classes at Platte City Middle School. District officials estimate the impact could be between 60 and 75 students who will have to switch classes.
“There’s no other way to do that to keep our class sizes as low as possible across the board,” Reik said. “We’re trying to keep that at a minimum.”
Platte County R-3 is currently the only district in the Northland that is returning to full in-person learning. The North Kansas City School District and the Park Hill School District have no plans and have not discussed returning to full in-person learning. Smithville has recently surveyed parents about a full in-person return with just over half supporting a return. Kearney schools have also discussed the issue but have taken no actions.
The board will meet again on Friday to see if anything has changed. Reik said at that point it would be hard to change course.