The “What If’s?”: Answers to a few current and frequently asked questions in the East community

The Kansas State Legislature passed legislation last session which severely limits the ability of districts to use remote instruction. For that reason, the district office expects that remote instruction would only be used as a last resort, and not as a strategy for combating high rates of COVID-19 infection. 

Peres confirmed that he’s not aware of any plan to go back to a remote experience as the administrators remain committed to keeping students in-person. If conditions were to worsen, Webex-use similar to last year is not out of the question, but currently not being considered. 

The district doesn’t currently have an option for students that have to miss school due to COVID-19 as calling in via Webex is no longer an option. Teachers and administrators encourage quarantined and excluded students to use Canvas to stay on track with school work.

The reason for this, according to Peres, is that having a class split between a screen and in-person creates both a teaching barrier for teachers and a learning distraction for students.

Though originally scheduled to be held indoors without a mask requirement on Feb. 5, East’s administration has told StuCo to put a pause of any further Sweetheart Dance plans due to the recent increasing COVID numbers in the school.

If cases remain above the 3% exclusion and quarantine threshold, the possibility of having an indoor dance may be reevaluated. 

On Jan. 10, the Board of Education approved an updated mitigation plan and winter event guidelines which confirmed that school dances will be allowed to take place. However, SM South has already canceled their Sweetheart dance, originally scheduled to take place Feb. 12, and SM North is waiting to make the ultimate decision until a week before their Winter Formal dance on Feb. 5.

However delaying the decision makes planning, booking a DJ and reserving the gymnasium risky, according to East’s student body president and senior Campbell Wood. As of Jan. 12, the dance is scheduled to take place in the main gym for a shorter amount of time than the usual two hour period with masks required and shoes not allowed to be worn on the gym floor to avoid damage. 

During the 2020-21 school year, the district stated that inclement weather days would be approached the same as remote learning days for the year. Now that the district no longer uses WebEx, and in-person school normalcy has returned, students are wondering if traditional inclement weather days will return as well.

According to Principal Jason Peres, the answer is yes — for now. In the event that the four allotted inclement weather days built into the schedule were to be used, the district may consider implementing WebEx use and taking a remote learning approach for the day. However, nothing is set in stone and the decision will ultimately be made only if the situation arises.