Six Wichita elementary schools closed Tuesday amid COVID-19 surge
Three public and three private Wichita elementary schools will be closed on Tuesday because of staff shortages amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, according to school district officials with USD 259 and the Catholic Diocese of Wichita.
Cessna, Spaght and Linwood public elementary schools will be closed Tuesday. Catholic elementary schools Christ the King, St. Francis of Assisi and Magdalen have also notified parents that classes are canceled on Tuesday. St. Francis and Magdalen will also be closed Wednesday, Wichita Catholic Schools superintendent Janet Eaton said.
Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School — which has roughly 900 students — canceled classes on Friday. But classes will resume Tuesday, Eaton said.
Wichita district officials warned parents last week that closures were possible as COVID-19 cases surge.
The Wichita public school district said in a report issued Friday that 301 staff members and more than 1,100 students tested positive for COVID-19. The district already had about 4,500 students and nearly 650 staff in quarantine. That’s roughly 10% of students and 8.5% of staff. There were no classes Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“The decision to close schools is due to number of staff absences and the inability to have enough people to cover those absences,” Wichita Public Schools spokesperson Susan Arensman said.
The Catholic Diocese of Wichita — which has 38 schools throughout the southeast quarter of Kansas, from Kingman to Pittsburg and McPherson to Coffeyville — has approximately 9,800 students, Eaton said. As of Wednesday of last week, more than 1,000 students were out because of exposure to COVID-19.
“There are several schools that are on the verge of us having to make a decision of whether they can stay open,” Eaton said of possible school closure later this week. “And most of that is because of staff shortages, though we are seeing a lot of students sick as well.”
The closures follow a surge of COVID-19 cases across the nation as the highly-contagious omicron variant takes over as the dominant strain of the coronavirus.
Two large school districts in northeast Kansas have also canceled classes this week as the coronavirus spreads through staff and students.
Olathe Public Schools and Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools canceled classes for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Kansas City Star. The latest closings follow several other Kansas districts that closed last week due to the surging virus, including Eudora, Desoto, Manhattan-Ogden, Bonner Springs and El Dorado, the AP has reported.
