USD #343 Approves Updated Gating Criteria
Launch the media gallery 1 playerOn December 14th, proposed changes to the District's gating criteria were approved during the Board of Education meeting. The criteria used to determine the phase of education used by the school district can be found here. https://bit.ly/343gating2020
Key changes to the document include:
- Adding a category that will consider the number of available substitute teachers.
- The clarification of how the final phase of education will be determined. We will assign a point value to each category and then use the average to determine the final phase. The average level will be categorized as follows: Green < 2.0, Yellow 2.0-2.99, Orange 3.00-3.99, and Red 4.0 and up.
We often find that the number of staff absences and the number of substitutes willing to teach will vary by building level. Therefore, our education phase could vary by level. For example, on 12/15, we have two teachers requesting substitutes, with both openings filled. Both of these staff absences are in the same building. Tomorrow we have one scheduled absence, the following day three, with two at the same building and one at another. We have substitute teachers who will fill all of these openings. Many factors can affect staff absences, such as quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19, doctor appointments, illness, illness of a family member, maternity leave, and staff training. Obviously, some absences can be planned for, and some cannot. Using another example would be a situation with three teachers on maternity leave and a COVID-19 outbreak leaving four teachers on the quarantine list for ten days. We would not have enough substitutes to cover in-class learning and would be forced to full-remote/online learning until teachers are able to return to work.
As of today, December 15th, our average positivity rate is 10.4% for a value of 3 points. (17.4% in Jefferson County and 3.3% in the Lecompton zip code.) The percentage of ICU beds available in the northeast Kansas region is 31%, for a value of 1 point. Our trend in incident rate is decreasing in both Jefferson and Douglas County over the last two weeks, for a value of 1 point. We currently have adequate substitutes available to fill our staff absences, for a value of 1 point. The total average point value of the four categories is 1.5 points. (6 points divided by the four categories.) If we were to have school next week, we would be moving to the green phase of education, regular classroom instruction at all levels.
We know these numbers could change over the next two weeks. We will review the numbers on December 30th to determine how the second semester will begin on January 6th. We hope that our communities continue to use safe practices that will enable our schools to return to full classroom instruction at the beginning of the next semester.