After rescinding the Johnson County gating criteria for reopening school, the Blue Valley District announces changes for the start of the 2020-21 school year
Beginning Sept. 9, high school students will attend school online. Athletics and activities will be suspended Aug. 22 for two weeks.
Beginning Sept. 9, high school students will attend school online. Athletics and activities will be suspended Aug. 22 for two weeks.
Superintendent Tonya Merrigan announced today the first four weeks of school for high school and middle school will be online only following the Kansas Board of Education’s gating criteria. All elementary students will follow a Hybrid learning plan, allowing for some in-person learning.
Merrigan also said at the request of some BV parents, an opportunity to change to the VirtualED schooling option, or the In-Person option, will be available Aug. 24-26.
As for athletics, Merrigan said all activities and athletics are on hold and are to be re-evaluated in two weeks. Rising senior and athlete Ethan Hunt said he hopes that the District takes these next two weeks to carefully assess the situation and ultimately allow students to play.
“I hope that the board critically evaluates the gating criteria numbers over the next two weeks, sees a decrease in these factors, puts us in the yellow zone and allows practice,” Hunt said.
A few days prior to this decision, the BOE hosted a meeting on Aug. 18 to allow community members to speak on matters such as playing fall sports and allowing elementary school students to return to in-person school, and finished with the BOE moving to rescind their adoption of the Johnson County health department’s gating criteria.
Once that motion was approved, the BOE then voted to adopt the Kansas State 2020 gating criteria, which was released on Aug. 11, the day after the board originally voted on the Johnson County criteria.
According to information presented by Superintendent Tonya Merrigan at the BOE meeting on Aug. 18, the Kansas State 2020 gating criteria consists of five different categories; the local hospital capacity, the trend in County incidence rate, the two week cumulative County incidence rate, the two week County percent positive case rate and the student absenteeism based on the 2019-20 daily attendance.
Board member Michele Benjamin said there was a disproportionate layout of the Johnson County gating criteria and she saw the need for a new plan.
“I think that the Johnson County [gating criteria] was very limited in what it looked at, and I never really liked the way that it was calculated,” Benjamin said. “I think that for us in particular, we need to have more data points that showed us a better picture of what’s happening in Blue Valley.”
During the 90-plus minutes of public comments, Blue Valley community members spoke of issues such as fall sports, elementary school in-person education, the negative impact this pandemic has had on teenagers as well as the fear that some teachers have of going back to in-person school.
The first community speaker of the night, Michelle Mitchell, a mother of two BVNW students, spoke on the possibility of canceling fall sports.
“I wanted to articulate to the Board of Education and the leadership in the district office that sports and activities are completely optional, and to allow each family to weigh the risks of the virus against the risks and rewards of not having the ability for our kids to participate,” Mitchell said during an interview with BVNWnews.com following the meeting.
BVNWnews.com reached out to Mitchell again following the announcement made by the BOE today. She said the decision to postpone sports is a disappointing one, as she said she feels it will impact the well being of students within the BV district.
“It all goes back to the well being of our adolescents and it is so disappointing that we do not have an opportunity as parents to assess the risks and decide what is best for our family members,” Mitchell said.
Furthermore, Mitchell said she thinks we will all look back on these decisions in the following years regretfully.
“This is not a deadly virus for the adolescent demographic and we are destroying the livelihoods of our teenagers,” Mitchell said. “I just think we are going to look back in 2021 or 2022 and say ‘how stupid were we.’”
Along the same lines as Mitchell, Hunt said the decision to postpone sports was upsetting and disappointing, but said he and his teammates will continue to advocate for sports to happen, regardless of when.
“The student-athletes of Blue Valley will not stop fighting this and will do anything we can do to get on the field,” Hunt said. “Whether that is in two weeks, four weeks or the Spring.”
Tessa Regan is a senior and the Print Editor for “The Express.” She enjoys writing for the publication. Outside of newspaper she is part of KAY Club as well as a member of the Mental Health Board. She loves hanging out with friends and watching movies. Other notable things about Tessa include her Starbucks addiction and profound love for shopping. This year she hopes to build excellent leadership skills while still working on her writing.
Megan Yates is a senior and the 2021-2022 Editor-In-Chief of “The Express.” She previously served as a staff writer and as the News Editor. Outside of newspaper, she is a member of the girls’ basketball and soccer teams. She is also involved with Student Government, National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, Medical Club, KAY Club and Relay for Life. Megan’s favorite movies consist of classics such as “Talladega Nights” and “The Hangover.” Like most teenagers, Megan likes to hang out with friends, shop and bake cookies when stressed. Megan is ecstatic to serve as the EIC and hopes to continue to deliver high-quality journalism content to the Northwest community.
