OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Many parents in the Shawnee Mission School District are frustrated with changes in their children's education environments.
"We got an email last night out of the blue saying your child will be changing schools and changing teachers," Jarian Gibson, parent to a first-grade and third-grade student, said.
Switching classrooms and teachers is the risk some parents took if they wanted an option to reevaluate their child's learning method at the end of the first semester.
In early September, parents said, the district asked them to decide what their learning model would be for the rest of the year. Then the district reverted to its original plan in which parents could decide at the semester, but with the possibility of not having a spot at their home school.
The email Gibson received did not mention the name of the student whose schedule would be affected. After making calls, he learned it applied to his first grader. His third grader will not have to switch classrooms or teachers.
"He was upset last night," Gibson said. "The way the school district keeps flip-flopping what they're going to do with these school plans, who knows what's going to happen next month or month after?"
Then, the district followed up with another email that explained the situation more in depth.
"The district provided parents an option to change their learning mode as we approach returning students to in-person learning in a hybrid model," the email stated. "These new elections have resulted in some staff and section changes across the district. While the district has worked hard to minimize both the number and impact of these changes, there are inevitable adjustments to class rosters that must be made."
Parent Danielle King had similar frustrations and hoped her kids wouldn't be affected.
"They're going to have to completely re-acclimate to a new teacher, new classmates, new technology changes, and the new procedures for learning," King said.
King said she heard from other parents that they chose the hybrid model purely out of fear that they wouldn't be able to keep their current school.
"It's going to cause disruptions no matter what they do," King said. "I don't see how this isn't going to affect in some way every elementary child in the district."
The district has 34 elementary schools with seven grades each. There is one teacher per 25 students. Children who selected the hybrid model will return to school, while other will stay at home.
So far, 286 remote students have been assigned to new remote teachers, according to district spokesperson David Smith.
Two teachers changed location and one changed both location and grade level.
Smith did not have numbers of in-person students who were moved to new teachers, stating that was handled at the building level. He said schools adding in-person sections likely had to move some students to other classrooms to balance enrollment.
"Understand that we have to make these changes without a single additional dollar," Smith said, "and you can get a sense of why we would have the need to move teachers and students."
