The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is preparing for a possible move into the High risk category for schools in the Kenai and Soldotna area, which could stunt the plan to open school buildings and continue activities as normal.
The Smart Start plan adopted by the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District calls for three risk levels which dictates the extent to which schools will open their facilities. That includes whether or not school buildings will remain open, the level of distance learning that will take place, as well as whether sports will continue.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District evaluates risk levels based on segments of the peninsula: South – including Homer, Anchor Point, and Fritz Creek, Eastern – which primarily focuses on Seward, and Central – including Kenai, Soldotna, Nikiski, and Sterling.
The Central peninsula reaches the High risk mark when 52 active COVID-19 cases are counted from the Department of Health and Social Services on a rolling 14-day count. Central remains the most likely area to reach High risk, with only a handful more active cases in the current 14-day cycle needed to make that push. Both South and Eastern remain at a safe Medium mark, pending any uptick in numbers.
KPBSD Superintendent John O’Brien says the district is keeping a close eye on the numbers, but that the decisions regarding High, Medium, or Low risk represent more than just the daily Department of Health and Human Services reports: “It’s a reminder to the folks out there: we don’t make our decisions strictly based on the numbers, because bear in mind, when those numbers are reported, those are not the actual onset date of when an individual has contracted the virus. Those are just dates that DHSS uses as reporting. It’s an imperfect instrument, but it’s been proven and vetted by our medical advisory group, and Dr. Zink and her team at DHSS. What we wold do is look at what that very important seven-day trend is. If we’ve gone this week with no or very-few numbers, and we’re not getting any indications from public health that they anticipate increased cases, it’s very likely – even though we might slightly be in Red over the weekend, if we anticipated those numbers were not going to be coming in and that we were going to be losing significant cafes, we could start in yellow.”
He expects any decisions impacting the August 24 opening of school buildings to be made based on trends, but noted that due to constant evaluation of numbers, decisions made with very little notice could occur throughout the school year: “We’re gonna try to give folks as much warning as we possibly can. I do anticipate, unfortunately, there might be situations this year where we have to make last-minute decisions that are going to be inconvenient for the community and inconvenient for employers and for parents.””
Stay with KSRM News for updates about the risk levels of KPBSD schools, as they are subject to change on any given day.
