KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One day after the Kansas State Board of Education rejected the governor’s executive order to delay the start of schools, Kansas’ top health official warned the state was headed toward "unprecedented territory" in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are headed into unprecedented territory as the virus gains speed through our state,” Department of Health and Environment Secretary Dr. Lee Norman said on Twitter. “Now is the time to pull together and fight the virus, not each other.”
We are headed into unprecedented territory as the virus gains speed through our state. Now is the time to pull together and fight the virus, not each other.
— Lee Norman (@SecNorman) July 23, 2020
Norman presented information on the state of COVID-19 in Kansas to the education board on Wednesday, urging members to adopt Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order to delay schools until after the Labor Day holiday.
“Schools are not safe islands in an unsafe community,” Norman told the board. “A school cannot be a safe island in an unsafe community where there's a marked increase in cases. If schools are in an unsafe community, they will not be safe.”
The board deadlocked on the measure to pass the order. Because of the split 5-5 vote, the measure failed.
Now, schools in the state will be in charge of determining their own plans on when to bring students back as Kansas continues to see significant increases in the number of cases. Several school districts in the Kansas City metro — including Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission and Kansas City, Kansas — already have said they will wait to start until after Labor Day.
After the education board's vote, Norman canceled his scheduled press briefing for Wednesday afternoon and said his next briefing would be held next week.
Norman has been critical of local municipalities that chose not to adopt the state’s Ad Astra Plan after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill to limit the governor’s emergency authority.
Since then, Norman has said communities “fumbled” on keeping case counts down and stemming the growth of the virus. The White House has declared Kansas a "red zone," and Chicago and the state of New York have added Kansas to their quarantine orders because of the state's number of cases per capita.
On Wednesday, Kansas had reported 24,327 cases of COVID-19 statewide, including 321 deaths.
