The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education voted 4-3 Tuesday night to allow sports workouts to begin on Monday, Sept. 14.
In a marathon board meeting lasting almost six hours on Tuesday, which also was the first day of school in the district, the board approved one of three recommendations from the school district’s athletic director, Tammie Romstad.
The motion by board member Stacey Yeager was to allow student athletes to start working out on Sept. 14 if they attended class and turned in their assignments.
Voting for the recommendation were Yolanda Clark, Randy Lopez, Maxine Drew and Dr. Yeager. Voting against the recommendation were Janey Humphries, Wanda Brownlee Paige and Dr. Valdenia Winn.
The school board previously suspended all fall KSHSAA sports and activities in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district because of COVID-19. That suspension, along with earlier Unified Government Health Department guidelines on sports, was the subject of student protests in August in Wyandotte County. The early sports recommendations from the Health Department came out Aug. 13, with newer guidelines on sports out on Sept. 4. School started on Tuesday in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district, but all classes were remote.
During her presentation, Romstad told the board that allowing practices to resume could be a way to motivate students to attend class and turn in their assignments.
The board members asked for more clarification on the plan to be presented at a special board meeting at 3 p.m. Friday, about what the attendance requirement means for each student, and also about how student athletes would get transportation to and from practices.
During the presentation, district officials mentioned that the district had been holding workouts during the summer when Wyandotte County had a 20 percent COVID-19 positivity rate. One day during that time, the county had a 29 percent rate, according to Romstad.
Dr. Winn was aghast at the positivity rates during the summer. “I’ll take the high road and say we dodged the bullet over the summer,” she said. “We were still allowing students to participate and the numbers were as high as 20 percent?”
“Did the board know what was going on?” Dr. Winn asked. “I’ll say no, I didn’t,” she added. She did not think they should have had workouts with such a high county positivity rate.
Board member Wanda Brownlee Paige wanted to wait for more information, as she said they were getting different numbers about the positivity rates.
The positivity rate reported by the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage was 17.6 percent on Sept. 8. However, district officials said they were told on Tuesday the number was lower.
Board member Maxine Drew said that she believes the numbers they heard in the report have been very low. She agreed with interim Superintendent Alicia Miguel that it was necessary to find some way to address the issue of students being present in classes.
Two other sports recommendations were not adopted at Tuesday night’s meeting, and will be taken up on Friday, according to the board.
The second recommendation, not adopted at this time, was to create transparency with students and parents through the Kansas State Department of Education gating criteria. The criteria were recommended to be used to determine when it is safe for each sport to start or suspend, using data from the local community.
The third recommendation, also not adopted at this time, was to accept the KSHSAA proposal to participate in fall sports in the spring, if health conditions allow.
The Unified Government Health Department issued some new guidelines for schools and sports on Friday.
The new recommendations include cohorting for students who engage in group activities outside of Wyandotte County. There is also guidance for non-school sports and activities, including private clubs.
UG Health Department staff members have discussed the guidelines with representatives of the local school districts, according to a spokesman. The guidelines are intended to promote COVID-19 safety during in-person learning while student athletes and other activities groups continue to compete outside of Wyandotte County, the spokesman stated.
This guidance applies to group activities in which students engage in practice, events, or competitions outside Wyandotte County (for example, – sports play or practice sanctioned by their school, private club, or other activity involving close contact that may put participants at higher risk for COVID-19), according to the Health Department officials.
The recommendations included staying together in one cohort while the student is playing school team sports. For example, during the school day a student could stay together with teammates in a classroom, with a coach as the instructor. There are other recommendations, as well.
Districts respond
In Wyandotte County, there have been different approaches to sports this fall. The Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools suspended all fall KSHSAA sports in order to keep students safe and reduce exposure to COVID-19. The Piper school district had scheduled away football games for the season, including a game tonight at Ottawa.
The school boards will make the decisions for each district on returning to sports.
Edwin Birch, a spokesman for the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools, said they haven’t discussed the new recommendations yet and will review them when they return from the Labor Day holiday break on Tuesday. The Kansas City, Kansas district has already decided to have virtual classes for the first nine weeks of school.
The Piper school district, according to Jenny Hurley, a spokesman, has reviewed the guidance released this afternoon.
“Our current procedures, including cohorting students and activity-based cohorts are directly in line with the recommendations issued today,” Hurley said in the statement. “We will continue to work closely with parents of those students participating in activities outside of school, such as club sports teams, if they wish to move their students from hybrid to remote learning based on the recommendation of the Wyandotte County Health Department.”
Dr. Jason Dandoy, Turner superintendent of schools, also had a statement: “Turner USD 202 appreciates guidance from the Wyandotte County Health Department. Our current student cohorts were built based on activities and instructional content preferences of students,” Dr. Dandoy stated. “We will continue to review our student cohorts to ensure that groups have as little contact as possible. We are excited to welcome students back to a safe learning environment next week.”
More details about the new recommendations
The new recommendations for fall activities, from the Health Department:
• Maintain cohorts for the fall semester A “cohort” is a group of students and a limited number of faculty/staff that remain together for classroom instruction and school activities, without intermingling with students, teachers, and staff from other cohorts. It is best practice for students to stay in one cohort throughout the fall semester. Doing so reduces the mixing of students, and thus, the potential spread of COVID-19 should an outbreak of the virus occur (that is, – if one cohort has a case of COVID-19, the other cohorts are at lower risk).
• Cohort activity groups together for classroom instruction (for example, – a sports team also has class together) or consider remote learning The UGPHD strongly recommends student activity group cohorting for both sports and in-person academic programming. If this cannot be achieved, the UGPHD strongly recommends remote learning for students participating in Out-of-County activities.
• Have activity coaches act as teachers/instructors for their activity cohorts An “activity cohort” is a group of students who practice and participate in the same sport or activity, who attend school together and are then grouped in classrooms with their teammates. These cohort classrooms should involve activity coaches as teachers/instructors. If this cannot be achieved, the UGPHD strongly recommends remote learning for students participating in out-of-county activities.
• Allow students learning remotely to return to regular school cohorts after the activity season It is best practice for those students to remain in a remote learning environment as long as they are participating in the club, extracurricular, or non-school sponsored restricted sports activities. They should only be allowed back into regular school learning cohorts after their season has ended, and 14 days have passed since they last participated in practices or competition.
Recommendations for non-school activities, such as private clubs:
• Opt into remote learning options Remote learning modalities are strongly encouraged for students who engage in any club, extracurricular, or non-school sponsored activities currently restricted within Wyandotte County as an alternate option to activity cohorts. For those students, the UGPHD strongly encourages remote learning programs offered by that district.
“Our top priority in Wyandotte County is to allow our children to learn safely in an in-person environment,” said Dr. Allen Greiner, chief medical officer with the Unified Government, in a news release. “But we recognize that some parents want to allow their student-athletes to continue to compete outside of Wyandotte County. Today’s recommendations are our best effort to maintain safe in-person learning for the majority of students, while also creating a pathway for student-athletes to continue with both their education and their athletic pursuits.”
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment this week reported 1,328 new COVID-19 cases between Monday and Wednesday. That brings the total number of cases in Kansas to 43,490, including 15 sports clusters responsible for causing 119 cases.
On Aug. 24, KDHE reported that statewide, there were 34 new cases reported in the 0-9 year old age group and 79 new cases statewide in the 10-17 age group. That KDHE data showed that, at that time, the 10-17 year old age group in Wyandotte County was testing positive at 18.1 percent, which was significantly higher than neighboring Johnson County, where youth 10-17 were testing positive at a rate of 6.81 percent. Several cases of COVID-19 in children have been traced to participation in youth sports.
“KDHE has tracked 10 COVID-19 clusters in Kansas that were related to youth sports this summer, including one current cluster of five people associated with a Kansas City, Kansas volleyball team,” explained Dr. Erin Corriveau, deputy medical officer with the Unified Government. “We recognize that said-athletes want to play and compete, and their parents want that for them. We feel that if this new guidance is followed by schools and student-athletes who are competing outside of Wyandotte County, we can further ensure a safe in-person learning environment for all children within Wyandotte County schools.”
According to Health Department officials, the recommendations are intended to accomplish three objectives: • Prevent a spike in positive COVID-19 cases due to exposure through certain sports and other activities in which it is difficult to maintain social distancing and/or wear masks the whole time • Provide consistent guidance for all non-professional sports at all levels, and • Reduce the possibility of more restrictive future measures
Janell Friesen, a spokesman for the Health Department, said they already were encouraging cohorting by classrooms, so that students who are attending classes in person are not going from classroom to classroom. This takes it a step further, she said. Athletes who attend away games and come back to classrooms could put a large number of students at risk and possibly shut down a school, so that’s why there is a recommendation for the athletes to stay together in one classroom.
Different schools will have different set-ups for how they are handling instruction, she added. Some districts have mostly remote instruction, while others are planning in-person instruction. Some have a combination of the methods.
The community is reminded to limit social interaction wherever possible, maintain 6 feet of social distancing, and to wear a mask at all times when in public, according to Health Department officials. By working together, everyone can limit the number of new positive COVID-19 cases in Wyandotte County, according to the officials.
Testing is available for individuals who live or work in Wyandotte County if they are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in close contact (within six feet for at least 10 minutes) with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Testing is available at multiple community locations, including the Public Health Department at 619 Ann Ave., and through weekly “pop-up” sites coordinated by the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force. To find the latest testing sites and schedules, visit wycokck.org/COVID-19.
For additional data and resources on COVID-19 in Wyandotte County, visit wycokck.org/COVID-19 or call 3-1-1.
The UG COVID-19 webpage reported 141 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, and two new deaths. (COVID-19 webpage)An illustration shown during the UG meeting showed how sports and activities could expose the athletes and other students to COVID-19, potentially. (From UG meeting)
Unified Government Health Department officials went over the sports rules for the fall at the 5 pm. Thursday Unified Government Commission meeting, but there were no changes made.
Doug Bach, UG administrator, said at the end of the discussion that there would be more evaluation and review of the situation by doctors and there could be items that come back for additional discussion later.
Commissioner Brian McKiernan was one of the elected officials who called for more discussion and communication with the health officials, commissioners and community on the topic, and some other commissioners agreed.
Commissioner McKiernan said they have given the Health Department doctors an impossible task, asking them to keep everyone healthy and productive, in the face of a virus that doesn’t care what they do. He said it was necessary to keep talking to each other to reach a middle point.
Health officials are afraid that if students go outside the county to play sports, as some have already done, they will break the cohorts at their schools and potentially expose many others to the virus.
Commissioner Mike Kane voiced the concerns of some student athletes and asked about the UG Commission having authority over the health orders.
He said that last weekend, more than 2,000 high school wrestlers gathered at the Hy-Vee Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. Also, students have been playing baseball and other sports all summer long outside of Wyandotte County, he said.
When schools agreed to follow all the guidelines, he thought that was good. Then he heard Dr. Lee Norman, state health secretary, say that the decision would be made by each school district, he added.
“We’re already going outside the county,” Commissioner Kane said. Some youth attend school outside Wyandotte County. Some adults work outside the county. The Legends Outlets is open with all kinds of shoppers there, he said.
“The teens have done what they were asked to do,” Commissioner Kane said. One fifth-grader wore a mask even though it was 92 degrees outside, he said. “When schools follow those guidelines, I don’t know why any rumor would go out there, or why we would have a presentation like this, because it sounds like you’re setting up to shut this stuff down and I don’t like that at all.”
Commissioner Kane said the doctor should not be the one to make the decision. He thought there has been a decision that the county commissioners could override the doctor, he added.
He asked a question on Aug. 13 about teams playing outside the county, and the reply was that they couldn’t control what people do outside the county.
“Somebody needs to go out there and watch these kids, paying attention and talking to them,” he said. If it wasn’t a remote meeting, the commission chambers would have been filled with students, because they feel like they’re being dictated to, he said.
“Before we do anything, we better make sure that everyone knows what’s going on and something is happening,” he said. “We need to give our kids something. We tied them up for a long time.”
“The state doctor has already said it’s OK to leave it up to the school districts, and we should leave it up to the school districts,” Commissioner Kane said.
Dr. Allen Greiner, Wyandotte County chief medical officer, said he doesn’t believe there’s anything they can do to control activities outside of Wyandotte County.
“Some of it boils down to the real clear evidence we have that stay-at-home orders work for reducing spread and reducing hospitalizations and reducing deaths,” he said. “Masks do that as well.” They are seeing a reduction in cases in the last month, and they will see fewer deaths because of mask orders, he said, unless there is another variable to increase it.
If anyone is going to engage in anything that puts them within 6 feet of someone for more than 10 minutes, they should be wearing masks, he said. They are trying to promote mask and social distancing because it reduces spread, reduces hospitalizations and saves lives, he said.
If sports can be conducted in such a way that people can wear masks and social distance, it will reduce spread, and schools won’t have to be closed at a rate as fast as they would otherwise, Dr. Greiner said.
If a school is going to have a football game in Kansas, they have to have 10 practices before the game. The Health Department wasn’t aware that practices with close contact was occurring in Wyandotte County, and they weren’t wearing masks, he said. They just heard that about a week ago and that is where the conversation on Thursday night was coming from, he added.
Commissioner Kane asked if they were going to close The Legends or the professional soccer games.
“This is a big deal,” Commissioner Kane said. “This is huge to the families. And I want everyone to be safe.
“I know they feel out in Piper that this was some sort of threat, and nobody likes that,” he said.
He said he’s never had so many phone calls and emails saying they can’t do this.
“As long as they follow those guidelines, they should play ball,” Commissioner Kane said.
Ken Moore, UG attorney, was asked for his opinion about the health orders.
Moore said the Legislature in the special session changed the statutes allowing the county commissions to override the local health orders.
He still believes the local health orders are more broad than the school board’s powers, he said.
The state’s attorney general has previously said that he thinks school boards can make the decisions about their own school district and what happens in their buildings. He also has said county commissions can overrule county health orders.
Commissioner Tom Burroughs asked about rumors that there would be a quarantine period or a 25-day trial period.
With some professional sports, there is a ton of resources being poured into the trials, with lots of testing and cohorting, Dr. Greiner said. While they’re open to creative solutions, it’s also a resource issue, of what they can do, he said.
“The real question is, are we treating our kids in a punitive manner, or is the message all wrong,” Commissioner Burroughs asked. At some point, they have to recognize the mental health aspect, he added.
They need some assistance as a community to find a result that’s not punitive, but is understandable and offers a safeguard without being heavy-handed, Commissioner Burroughs said.
Dr. Corriveau said it was a difficult time for them to think about what to do next. There were a lot of loud voices now on this issue, and also some quiet voices who are afraid, she said. They are hearing from both.
It is a fine line, and they don’t want to take hope away from the youth, Dr. Corriveau said. They have prioritized classroom learning and allow them to receive their education, she said. They have prioritized classroom learning over extracurricular activities at this point, although they realize extracurricular activities are important.
There is evidence, including the local team that had an outbreak, that close contact spreads the virus, and no evidence that it doesn’t, Mayor David Alvey said.
The measures they’re trying to put in place are always about trying to protect people, Mayor Alvey said.
All the measures are incremental, and no one thing does it all, he said.
Mayor Alvey has heard people say they are dictating, and he said that football is all about dictating and limits. “We dictate you cannot rough the passer,” he said. It’s dictating, and “that’s simply done for safety.”
In his previous role as a school administrator, Mayor Alvey said he was formerly in charge of making sure that conditions at games were safe. When a lightning detector showed that it was dangerous, they had to evacuate and cancel that game, he said.
“That was not a punishment, it is a consequence,” Mayor Alvey said. “There are natural consequences of actions and there are punishments.”
Telling people not to engage in close contact is not punitive, but simply a safety measure that is a consequence, he said.
The enemy is not the Health Department, nor the administration, it is the virus, he said.
The virus is going to do what the virus wants to do, he said. What they must do is pay attention, and decide what it is that they need to do to stop it. Every time they take their eye off it, they lose track of what they’re about, because the virus is dictating to them. Then the virus will take them where they don’t want to go, he said.
As a school administrator, he said he understands how important athletics are.
“But I would never have allowed the game to go on with lightning coming down,” he said. He was not going to be the person who did not evacuate the stands and people died, he added.
“If we do what we need to do to slow the virus, we take control and not let the virus control us,” Mayor Alvey said.
Health Department offers details about COVID-19 numbers
Much of the Health Department presentation went into detail about the fall sports order, explaining the reasoning behind it. Some contact sports were prohibited in the order.
Dr. Greiner said the Wyandotte County case rates per 100,000 were double that of Kansas City, Missouri’s rate, twice as much as the state rate and three times the Johnson County rate.
Only Kansas City, Missouri, is doing more testing than Wyandotte County, he said. “Our rate is significantly higher,” he said.
Wyandotte County has 5% of the total Kansas population, but 14% of Kansas COVID-19 cases and 26% of Kansas COVID-19 deaths, he said.
The seven-day rolling average is 45 cases a day, which is an improvement, he said Deaths are less than a half per day, but the percent positivity rate is high at 18 percent. The Health Department testing percent positivity rate is 27 percent.
Dr. Greiner said most of the decline in new cases they’ve seen since the middle of July has been due to the mask order.
While COVID-19 is still most deadly for older adults, about a fifth of the deaths are among those younger than 60, he said. In the last month, there have been slightly higher numbers of deaths, but that may decline as the effects of the mask order are seen, according to Dr. Greiner. The number of deaths in lower age groups has been increasing.
Juliann van Liew, Health Department director, said the Centers for Disease Control within the last few days has issued new guidelines against testing close contacts of positive cases. She said the Health Department believes this is largely politically motivated and the Health Department will not be adopting it.
The Health Department, however, will be recommending tests from 7 to 9 days after exposure to a positive case, a little longer than the previous 5 to 7 days, she said.
Van Liew said the Health Department is working on saliva testing validation, is near completion and they expect to finish in the next week or so. They will be moving away from the nasal swab test if it works out. Tests are free at the Health Department for those who live or work in Wyandotte County, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Wyandotte County is running the second highest in tests in the metropolitan area; however there has been a decrease in testing numbers in the past few weeks, she said. They are now testing about 65 people a day, she said. The 7-day rolling average of tests is a little under 400, she added.
A rolling average of positive test percentages has been going up, which is one of the things that worries them about school reopening and activities, she said.
Dr. Erin Corriveau, deputy chief medical officer, said COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital have been increasing recently.
The University of Kansas Health Center on Thursday morning reported 27 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, with an additional 34 COVID-19 patients still there who are not considered acutely infectious. Usually, about a third to a half of the patients at the hospital are from Wyandotte County, Dr. Corriveau said.
The number of people admitted to the hospital locally without any other existing conditions also has been increasing, she said.
Dr. Corriveau said youth from 0 to 19 years old make up about 14.7 percent of all OVID-19 cases in Wyandotte County. People ages 60 and older make up about 14.4 percent of the Wyandotte County cases, she said.
There is a disproportionate effect on Hispanic youth, she said. Over 50 percent of youth COVID-19 patients were Hispanics.
“We’re starting to find there are long-term cardiovascular effects,” she said.
Dr. Greiner cited a study in Germany earlier this month with a group of 100 persons ages 40 to 60 who were four months out from a COVID-19 infection.
They did cardiac MRIs on the hearts and found 78 of 100 patients had persistent cardiac muscle motion deficit, he said.
“We know this virus does attack the heart in certain patients significantly,” Dr. Greiner said.
“We are constantly trying to walk a fine line between being extremely cautious and use the science and data we know we have to protect everyone, and to allow freedoms,” Dr. Greiner said. They hope to get students back in the classrooms safely, he said.
With social distancing and mask mandates, they hope to control the virus more than they did with the stay-at-home order, he added.
But it’s really tough walking that fine line, and trying to work with everyone, who have their own individual concerns that are important, he said.
“We just don’t want to see a situation where we let activities like in-class schooling start again and might have a heart issue in some patients down the line that we feel could have been avoided with more careful planning and more detailed analysis of who’s in contact with them,” Dr. Greiner said.
Dr. Corriveau said after Labor Day, many students will be returning for 50% in-class learning. The Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools will do remote learning for the first nine weeks.
The Health Department has worked with the school districts to devise plans that use cohorting, where students are in small groups that stay together, and don’t mix with other students.
If one person gets sick, they would not compromise the other students outside their cohort, she said.
“We have become concerned, after issuing our previous order regarding sports, that many of the activities planned for students have moved outside the county,” she said. “We worry that when we allow our students to go elsewhere to compete and then return back to Wyandotte County, unfortunately we’ve broken those cohorts and we may be placing our children at risk,” she said.
It’s not just about the children, as their parents, grandparents and guardians also may be at risk, she added.
If there are two separate cohorts in one building experiencing clusters at the same time, that would be an appropriate time to close the school for fear the virus would spread, she said.
If absenteeism for in-person classes is 10% higher than last year’s average, they would consider closing the school at that time, she said. This is still under discussion, she said.
So far, there have been 10 clusters associated with sports in Kansas, according to Dr. Corriveau. She cited KDHE statistics. One of the clusters was a Kansas City, Kansas, volleyball club team, she said. Some of the sports were contact sports, but not all of them were, she added.
She said when students are allowed to practice or pay sports or other activities, it may not be with their cohorts, kids from other cohorts would get together and unfortunately, it would be compromising the cohort at that time, she said.
Additionally, busing children outside the county to participate in other activities or “away” games is a concern to the Health Department, she said.
If the kids were to become infected in that setting, they worry that they would bring the virus back and it would spread quickly through the cohort that they had laid out so carefully through the school, she said.
In many ways, Wyandotte County has been successful with its efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Dr. Greiner said.
They are hoping that if people go outside the county to do activities, they would prioritize wearing masks and social distancing, he said.
“Our concern is whenever we identify something that’s happening that might involve no masks and no social distancing, how can we mitigate the spread,” he asked.
They’re aware that people may be doing all sorts of things, he said, but they hope people are trying to be careful and reduce the spread.
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask order and is in Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan. For more information, residents may visit the UG COVID-19 website at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information or call 311 for more information.
