For now, USD 253 Emporia Public Schools plans to maintain its current plan for COVID-19 mitigation protocols.
Superintendent Allison Anderson-Harder says the summer activity plan is set to transition to the fall semester beginning next month.
Anderson-Harder also urged parents to use the time before classes officially begin Aug. 19 to gt their students vaccinated. Jump Start for new students, whether to the district as a whole or to their respective schools, is Aug. 18.
USD 253 is trying to avoid last year’s raft of protocols, which included mask usage and six-foot social distancing measures. The district also gave elementary students the option of in-person or remote learning, and for much of last year it also used a cohort process at Emporia Middle School and Emporia High where increasing percentages of students returned to those buildings as the year progressed.
Districts across Kansas are at least discussing whether to reconsider their plans for the start of school next month with COVID-19 cases increasing yet again. Variant strains are the driving force behind recent conversations, with the delta variant now accounting for over 80 percent of new genetically-sequenced cases across the country. Lyon County percentages are lower, less than 25 percent of the county’s nearly 60 cases so far this month, but that’s because the Kansas Department of Health and Environment hasn’t been requesting widespread sequencing until recently. Previously, Lyon County had requested sequencing in “cases of high consequence,” including patients with a long list of close contacts.
There are currently four variants of concern, three of which are noted across the KVOE listening area — alpha, gamma and delta. There are also four variants of interest being tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. Click here for WHO information on variants of interest or concern.
