PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. — The Shawnee Mission School District is the latest Kansas City-area district to welcome students back on campus.
The district has been closed to students since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
41 Action News visited Briarwood Elementary in Prairie Village to hear about some of the changes that have been made in preparation for in-person learning.
"You know, I think it boils down to three important things," Chris Lash, principal at Briarwood, said. "We need to wear masks, we need to stay socially distanced and we need to wash our hands frequently or use hand sanitizer."
Lash and his staff will welcome more than 100 students back into their buildings Monday.
That number includes kindergarten through second grade students who chose the hybrid model and have last names that begin with A-L. Those students will attend on Monday and Tuesday. Students with last names M-Z will attend on Wednesday and Thursday.
The changes for parents and families will be clear before they even step inside.
"Instead of having one car line, we're going to use two car lines, and we're going to have multiple drop-off locations, so we don't have big gatherings of students at any one spot," Lash said.
Big gatherings inside classrooms are gone too.
"So that meant we had to take some furniture out," Lash said. "To make room for the tables that we needed to fit the kids in there, in the hybrid model, at six feet apart."
But the most drastic change may be at lunch.
District spokesperson David Smith said the cafeteria inside Briarwood is so small that, keeping kids apart, teachers would have to start sending them to lunch almost immediately after they arrived.
The solution? Find a new spot to eat.
"We had our maintenance staff, probably 20 guys, come and physically carry half the cafeteria tables upstairs," Smith said. "They've got a pretty big size hallway, and they spread the tables out in the hallway to make sure we can keep kids at six-foot distance.
Life for the staff, just like life for parents at home right now, is about solutions, and small victories. Finding one, and celebrating the other.
"Oh yeah," Lash said. "I think a win is, one, we're safe, and two, kids have a great day and go home excited about school."
SMSD will stay on the hybrid schedule for one week, and then the rest of the elementary school students, grades 3-6, will begin a hybrid schedule the following week.
