Kansas City mayor advises schools in metro to delay return until after Labor Day

A Tuesday morning announcement from Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and city Health Director Rex Archer advised schools in the area to strongly consider moving the fall start date for in-person classes to after Labor Day.

The announcement followed word from Kansas City Public Schools Monday, which stated that the school district would not return to in-person classes in the fall and that the district would be reconstructing a plan on what the school year would look like.

Although the Lucas’s announcement heavily supports a delay, he reminded that it came only as a recommendation.

“That is a recommendation rather than a mandate,” Lucas said. “We’ll leave it to school leadership – our public schools, charter schools, parochial schools and all schools with buildings in Kansas City, Mo. – to do what’s best for them and their students, but we would make that recommendation.”

Lucas also called on counties within Kansas City—Jackson, Platte, Clay, Cass—to provide further funding to school to help facilitate the reopening of schools, reports KCTV 5 News.

Archer said a delayed start would allow the community to continue monitoring new number trends to see what the numbers do, claiming the delay the provide a better idea on where the outbreak is going.