OLATHE, Kan. — The Olathe Board of Education met Thursday to evaluate its learning plans and take public comments from parents.
As of Thursday, the COVID-19 incidence rate in Johnson County is at 441 new cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.
The positivity rate is now at 11 percent. This is why the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment put the county in a red zone for schools.
However, despite the red zone recommendation, this does not change anything for the Olathe, Shawnee Mission, and Gardner Edgerton school districts. Students are still in-person and hybrid.
"Our investigation is pointing to people that are gathering together," Dr. Sanmi Areola said at the board meeting on Thursday. "We're having weddings with 200, 300 people, we're having football watch parties, birthday parties, camps, church events, all of those are contributing to the spread."
Dr. Areola said data shows the virus is not spreading as much inside the schools.
Parents in the area say staying in-person and following a hybrid-model is the right move.
"The downside, if the schools move kids back out of school, will be devastating," Olathe High School parent Brian Connell said. "You will have teacher revolt, you will have parent revolt. And you'll have kids emotionally, physically, and scholastically crushed. So you can't go backwards."
Connell said his students' schools are rigorous with mask-wearing and distancing.
"I think they're following common sense more than everything," Connell said.
Kitty Hensley is also a parent in the Olathe School District who wants the Olathe Board of Education to leave the learning models as they are for the time being.
Hensley says her student is not doing well with the hybrid model.
"It's a different learning environment, it's hard for kids to adjust," Hensley said. "And if you know much about how young children learn, they use all their senses, so we're not engaging if we're just in this virtual world online."
The health department is working with the districts on maintaining social distancing policies that are in place.
The department also hired 20 people to help with contact tracing.
Dr. Areola presented COVID-19 data to Johnson County Commissioners at the board meeting.
He said there have been 2,371 new COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks, with 366 new cases recorded on Thursday morning alone.
Elizabeth Holzschuh, Director of Epidemiology at the health department, said she knows of at least five large weddings that took place in the county over the weekend of Oct.16.
Holzschuh says there where several cases of COVID-19 reported at each event.
At the board meeting, Holzschuh told commissioners the Contact Tracing Privacy Act, passed by the Kansas legislature over the summer, is hampering their ability to do contact tracing.
This sparked a heated conversation at the board meeting.
"What we would typically do is speak to the organizer of said gathering and obtain that list, reach out to all the individuals, let them know they may have been infected " Holzschuh said.
She was interrupted by Johnson County Commissioner, Steve Klika.
"Elizabeth, please, I'm not trying to be rude here, but the fact of the matter is this is a virus. I don't care if it's a large gathering or a gathering of two and a family. It's happening." Klika said. "There's only so much control that government can do to stop the gatherings. Unless we want to shut everyone into a house and lock the doors and keep people there, it's going to happen. I'm sorry, it's a reality."
Johnson County Commissioner Mike Brown agreed and said he doesn't want COVID-19 protocols to be like a "police state."
The Shawnee Mission school board will meet next week to talk about their learning models.
