Health Guidelines and Reopening Plan
(Last Updated 1/28/2021)
2020-2021 School Year
The COVID-19 pandemic is a national crisis that poses a serious health risk for everyone. With this in mind, we will be moving forward with a phased back-to-school plan for the 2020-2021 year.
Based upon our continued conversations with leaders, teachers, students, families and our Board of Directors, we have a few updates regarding our return to in-person learning. We continue to plan for in-person learning in March.
As noted previously, we will bring our school-based staff back to working on-site on Monday, March 1 to begin preparing our staff and students for the in-person school schedule. You will receive further details about returning to our regular schedules and start-times from your building leaders in the near future.
From there, we will begin to transition some students from the distance learning model to in-person learning on March 15. We are currently modifying grade levels and reconsidering a hybrid approach, which is a change from previous communication, as we’ve been adjusting decisions based on new recommendations and guidance. Students enrolled in our Kansas City Virtual Academy will continue to learn from home.
KCPS continues to plan for vaccination administration for our staff. We initially received confirmation of our staff vaccine rollout in February, but as you are most likely aware, the vaccine distribution in Missouri ranks the worst in the country. We have started vaccine administration among our staff 65 and older, but we have learned that our timeline for all staff vaccination is being pushed back to March and April.
We are aware that we’ve stated vaccine roll-out is part of our return to in-person learning considerations. Because we are receiving new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other health organizations, we are still moving forward with having some students return to in-person learning in March. We will adhere to the CDC guidelines, while still monitoring our gating criteria and vaccine variables, as we safely bring our students back to in-person learning.
We have created these guidelines to protect the health and wellness of students, staff and visitors when school buildings do begin to re-open. The good news is that we know that we can maximize the safety of our stakeholders during this pandemic by following three easy rules:
Mask On – Masks are required when in our school buildings.
Clean Up – We will keep our school buildings clean to the highest standards and we will encourage all students, staff, parents, guardians and visitors to monitor their own health and to practice excellent self-cleanliness practices, including washing their hands regularly and avoiding touching their own faces.
Stay Safe – We will facilitate social distancing in our schools and other buildings and will encourage all students, staff, parents, guardians and visitors to maintain a six-foot distance from other people as much as possible.
If everyone works hard to follow the “Mask On, Clean Up and Stay Safe” guidelines during this pandemic, we are confident that we will minimize the number of positive COVID-19 cases that result from interactions in our buildings.
- General Policies & Procedures
- Screening Students
- Health Maintenance
- Transportation
- School Entry
- Mask/Face Coverings
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Hand Hygiene
- Classrooms, Physical Distancing, and Cohorts
- Special Health Care Considerations
- Plan for Acute Respiratory Treatment
- Health Office Procedures
- Quarantine, Isolation, and Containment
- School Response to COVID-19 Cases