KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Missouri Gov. Mike Parson met Thursday with Kansas City-area leaders to discuss his plans to reopen for the fall semester.
Parson said reopening plans would likely look at others in other parts of the state, highlighting Missouri’s diversity in terms of rural and metropolitan areas.
The governor said education officials should also strike a balance between protection and learning.
“How are principals progressing and what are the barriers to balancing the protection and schooling of children?” Parson said. “We’re looking to figure out how we all move forward, how I can in this situation.”
Parson said that one of the key points for young people to return to school is young people who would possibly struggle at home with virtual learning due to their socioeconomic prestige or health.
“I am incredibly involved with low-income, poverty-friendly young people, young people with disabilities, who can be very well (see) some young people who will be excluded from the system,” Parson said. “Many young people will have the opportunity to virtualize and will have the ability to do so, but there will be many young people who will not.”
The governor said officials would continue to monitor the number of cases in Missouri before the first day back to school.
“I think one thing is obvious. I think everyone understands that the virus is there, we’re going to have to deal with it,” Parson said. “We all know what the numbers are every day, every week, because we see how it affects us, how it affects our decisions. Everything fits every day.”
Crossroads Charter Schools EXECUTIVE Director Dean Johnson said one of the key topics of discussion in the assembly was to strike a balance between local and state councils. Johnson said the governor had made it clear that he believed firmly in allowing directors to make decisions for their own communities, but that school leaders were asking for more recommendations on how to do so.
“He was very receptive to the concept of providing a more direct state recommendation on a topic for measuring pandemic situations and how this deserves our school opening decisions,” Johnson said.
Johnson said an express issue was also discussed to charter schools on how schools measure attendance rates. Unlike public schools, charter schools cannot use prior knowledge to compensate for average daily attendance, which stimulates funding.
Johnson said charter schools are calling for a replacement in the emergency rule, as there are very likely to be more absences among students this year.
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Johnson County Video Update, KSCOVID-19