Eudora High School COVID-19 UPDATE

Story by: Harleigh Moore

As the number of cases related to COVID-19 rise in the United States, schools are left wondering what to do about the upcoming school year. In late March of this year, the district switched to a fully remote learning model to finish out the school year. With the spread of Covid not slowing down, the Board of Education is left to decide what is best for the students in the district for the Fall semester.

The school year started off fully in person, however, that didn’t last long as numbers began to change. Students were also given the choice of participating in fully remote learning. The district has been practicing a hybrid way of learning for the past three weeks. Students with the last name A-J, go to school on Monday and Tuesday while students with the last name K-Z are remote for those days. These groups are known as A and B students. On Thursday and Friday B students, K-Z, are in person while A students, A-J, are online. On Wednesdays, however, all students learn from home as the school buildings are being sanitized and cleaned.

With everything being up in the air and nothing being certain, teachers and staff are left to plan and teach as the school year goes along.

“They are literally working their tails off to make this experience as good as it possibly can be for students,” said Assistant Principal Joe Zlatnik, “because the job that they have this year is an especially difficult one.”

On Sep. 24, the school board hosted another meeting to decide what the next few weeks of school would look like. It was decided that starting Oct. 5, the Eudora School Districts would enter a modified in person learning. Both A and B students will be in person on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesdays, all students will still be remote, that way the school can still be sanitized and cleaned for the last half of the week.

With all of the changes and areas of concern in the school building, athletes and coaches are also worried about what will happen to their sports season. According to Athletic Director Cara Kimberlin, there is no risk of the Fall season being canceled as of right now. That hasn’t stopped games and meet from being canceled because of the number of cases.

Athletic directors from all over the state are working together to try and make up for all of the cancellations.

“It’s been a constant reshuffling of schedules,” said Kimberlin.

An alternative sports season was offered to schools by KSHSAA that gives them the opportunity to have the fall sports season in the early spring. Eudora will most likely not be taking this option because of how it interferes with the Winter and Spring seasons.

“There’s no good time to put it in there and it would really tax our kids because we have so many kids that are multisport athletes,” said Kimberlin.

Although Eudora will not be playing fall sports in the spring, if enough schools from 1-4A in Kansas choose to move their fall season to the spring, it will affect what our Spring season will look like. With the way the schedule is set up, it is possible that there will be a month delay on the Spring season and sports will go until June instead of late May.

As of right now, what the spring season will look like is still up in the air. What the season will look like is greatly affected by how many positive cases are in the area.

“I can’t stress enough to our kids that are athletes…,” said Kimberlin, “that just because you leave this parking lot and this space, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have [masks] on.”