As Kansas schools struggle with COVID staff shortages, lawmaker points to limited remote 'flexibility'

As Kansas public schools struggle with staffing shortages and student absences induced by the coronavirus pandemic, a top lawmaker on education issues said educators have "flexibility" thanks to the new limit on remote learning.

Rep. Kristey Williams, R-Augusta and the chair of the House K-12 Education Budget Committee, provided committee members with media talking points on managing school closures.

"Our schools have more flexibility today than they did pre-pandemic," said Williams, who is a former teacher. "And that's because they have the option of 40 hours of remote schooling that they can use, which is approximately six days, that they wouldn't have had pre-pandemic."

The state law limiting remote schooling to 40 hours was passed last session. Previously, there was no limit for time spent in online learning. Schools are required to provide at least 1,116 hours of education per year, or 186 days, under state law.

"If a school district does need to close because of a teacher shortage, then they have that option of doing that temporarily, and then making those 1,116 hours up or any portion of that up," Williams said. "And then they are completely compliant."

Williams's talking points offered no suggestions for how school districts should address the pandemic-induced staffing shortages.

Well more than a dozen school districts canceled classes at some point over the past week due to either staffing shortages or high student absenteeism due to COVID-19. Many indicated they were using snow days built into the calendar to cover the closures.

At least one district moved to remote education while a second indicated online learning could be considered.

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Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly last week encouraged lawmakers to consider making a change to the rule in light of school closures.

"I am hoping that the Legislature will recognize what is happening and perhaps modify that statute," she said.

State law passed last session generally limits school districts to 40 hours of remote learning per academic year.

If a district used up the remote learning hours during the delta variant surge early in the fall semester, it would not have additional hours to use with the omicron variant wave now at the start of the spring semester.

The law does have potential exceptions to the 40 hour rule in cases of disasters, though ambiguity can leave administrators uncertain of whether pandemic staffing issues would qualify for a waiver.

"The only way to go beyond 40 hours is if you have property damage," Williams said.

However, the statute states that an epidemic that causes widespread or severe injury or loss of life would qualify as a disaster.

"Closures related to pandemic do not qualify for waivers or extended application for remote learning," Williams said in written testimony on "managing school closures." She added that "schools may NOT apply to exceed the 40-hour remote learning parameters for their district or a school within their district based on pandemic, staffing, or non-property damage reasons."

Staffing shortages among Kansas educators

Mischel Miller, the state's director of teacher licensure and accreditation, said vacancy concerns are focused on special education, elementary education, science, math and English. As of fall 2021, Kansas schools reported more than 1,200 teacher vacancies, with fewer full-time equivalent educators than eight years ago.

"Western Kansas struggles the most filling their vacancies," Miller said.

Kansas does have more active substitute teaching licenses now than in past years. She attributed the increase to educators pleading for help.

The state had 12,312 active sub licenses in 2019-20, 12,634 in 2020-21 and 14,067 now in 2021-22.

"I will tell you anecdotally, that's still not enough," Miller said. "It is an answer to a call that I believe school districts, you all, our office, put out to any community member willing to go serve in the classroom, please apply, we need your service."

"So we are exploring some options to increase that pool of substitute licenses," she continued. "We have offered many ways for a community member, PTA mom, a carpool person, someone who's at home with her children, his children, to be able to come in and alleviate our current teachers."

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Last week, the Kansas State Board of Education eliminated college credit requirements for emergency substitute licenses this academic year. Normally, prospective substitutes need to have completed 60 college credit hours to qualify for a license.

Miller said the move came after the agency, between Christmas and New Year's, surveyed superintendents about shortages. More than 97% reported substitute shortages, with more than 95% indicating that relaxing regulations would help fill open positions.

A majority of superintendents backed the measure as a temporary and a permanent solution. Miller and some K-12 Education Budget Committee members expressed interest in exploring cutting the 60-hour requirement in the future.

Miller said the agency is working "to support our current teaching staff so that they will stay in our profession."

"The goal is for us to explore some high-quality options to continue to cover classrooms in Kansas," Miller said. "And we want and desire an appropriately licensed teacher for every student in Kansas. But you can see that that is a bit of a struggle, one that we continue to face and will continue to address."

Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, D-Lenexa, asked whether officials could waive the waiting periods for retired teachers to return as substitutes. Education department officials said the requirement comes from the state pension plan, which must follow Internal Revenue Service rules.

Rep. Timothy Johnson, R-Bonner Springs, suggested that schools should encourage paraprofessionals to become substitutes. He also said some districts "made things harder on themselves" to find subs.

"I substituted this last semester," he said. "But I did it in private schools because I found public schools early in the fall weren't willing to accommodate me at that time. And I simply told them, you know, some of your requirements, you're asking me for medical issues. I'm not going to comply with that."

KDHE identifies school COVID clusters

On Wednesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 39,326 new cases since Friday. That's an average of nearly 7,900 new cases a day. The 151 new hospitalizations and 128 new deaths reported during that time average out to 30 hospitalizations and 26 deaths per day.

The agency reported a seventh child death on Wednesday. The child was in the infant to 9-year-old age group.

About 1.1% of the entire state population was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, KDHE data show. The 14-17 age group had the worst case rate, with about 2.1% of its population diagnosed with COVID-19.

Weekly case rates above 100 per 100,000 people — or 0.1% of the population — is a federal benchmark for high community spread. Federal reports state that case rates above that point indicate "significant measures are needed to limit contact between persons, with priority given to maintaining essential community activities and services."

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The KDHE reported 20 new coronavirus clusters at schools, seven at day cares and three at sports. Kansas has active outbreaks reported at 34 schools, 13 day cares and five sports.

Not all clusters are named under agency policy. Publicly identified outbreak locations and cases reported in the past two weeks, as reported by KDHE, include:

• Canterbury Academy Olathe day care, five cases.

• Atchison Elementary School, six cases.

• Atchison High School, six cases.

• Canton Galva Elementary, nine cases.

• Canton Galva High School, 13 cases.

• Chaparral High School in Anthony, 15 cases.

• Circle High School in Towanda, 15 cases.

• Circle Middle School in Benton, 18 cases.

• Heartspring School in Wichita, six cases.

• La Crosse #395 School, nine cases.

• Maur Hill-Mount Academy in Atchison, 14 cases.

• McPherson High School, 12 cases.

• Peabody Burns High School, 18 cases.

• Sabetha High School, nine cases.

• Smoky Valley High School in Lindsborg, 29 cases.

• Soderstrom Elementary School in Lindsborg, 10 cases.

• USD 321 Rossville, 25 cases.

• USD 377 Effingham, 26 cases.

• West Elementary School in Valley Center, 17 cases.

• Smoky Valley Middle School sports in Lindsborg, 20 cases.

• Southwest Middle School sports in Lawrence, five cases.

State data indicate the Peabody-Burns USD 398 and Udall USD 463 had the most children infected with COVID-19 over the first two weeks of the new year. Both districts had more than 10% of their presumed student bodies test positive between Jan. 1 and Jan. 14.

The same report shows more than 5% of presumed students tested positive in Hillsboro USD 410, Valley Falls USD 338, Altoona-Midway USD 387, Cedar Vale USD 285, Central Heights USD 288, Barber County North USD 254, Mill Creek Valley USD 329, Pleasanton USD 344, Stafford USD 349, Columbus USD 493, Jayhawk USD 346, Morris County USD 417, Eudora USD 491, Perry USD 343, Baldwin City USD 348 and Marais des Cygnes Valley USD 456.

The KDHE report on presumed case and vaccination rates by school district is available online.

The governor's Safer Classrooms Workgroup has not met since its last meeting in December. At that point, the group did not plan to hold spring semester meetings but leadership indicated they may reconsider if the situation worsened.

In the group's final report, the medical and education experts said vaccination would be the most effective way "to mitigate the risk of outbreaks in schools following the holidays." They also advocated for continued testing and masking, with data showing that outbreaks were worse when schools didn't require masks.

Jason Tidd is a statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jtidd@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Tidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas Republican lawmaker responds to school COVID closures, remote