Students will get two more days of winter break than expected, following last night’s school board meeting. 

Classes will resume on Jan. 7 instead of Jan. 5. Those two extra days will be used for staff professional development.

To compensate for the extra professional development days, the board extended the high school first semester through Jan. 20, with students now taking finals on Friday, Jan. 15, Tuesday, Jan. 19, and Wednesday, Jan. 20. 

The board also finalized its reopening criteria, adopted from the Kansas Department of Education. The board initially approved the criteria at its Dec. 3 meeting.

The criteria takes into account five weighted factors to decide whether classes and activities will be held in-person, hybrid or remote:

• 30% Two-week county positivity rate
• 30% Two-week county incidence rate
• 15% Local/referring hospital capacity
• 20% Trend in county incidence rate
• 5% Student absenteeism

The board voted 6-1 in favor of the plan. Board member Shannon Kimball voted against, citing concern about considering absenteeism.