TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Local school boards in Kansas will be allowed to reopen elementary, middle and high schools in mid-August as they normally would, despite a surge in coronavirus cases in the state.

The Republican-controlled State Board of Education voted 5-5 Wednesday and rejected Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s plan to postpone the start of fall classes for three weeks, until after Labor Day. The 10-member elected board’s action leaves decisions about when to reopen to the state’s 286 local school boards, something Republican legislators and conservatives outside of state government had pressured it to do.

The board’s action prevents Kelly from issuing an executive order setting Sept. 9 as the start of classes for both public K-12 schools and private ones that are accredited by the state. The governor already had ordered those schools to have students and staff wear masks and have them checked daily for fever, and those mandates still stand.

“This virus is not the same across the state,” said board member Jean Clifford, a Garden City Republican who opposed Kelly’s plan.

Kelly suffered a big political and policy defeat after facing strong criticism from the Republican-controlled Legislature over her handling of the pandemic.

The board’s vote Wednesday was required under a law enacted last month as a compromise between Kelly and GOP lawmakers who pushed to curb her power. Kelly lifted statewide restrictions on businesses and public gatherings on May 26, after weeks of criticism from Republicans that she was moving too slowly to reopen a state economy she had locked down for five weeks starting in late March.

Also, in mid-March, Kelly closed all K-12 school buildings for the rest of the last school year and faced some criticism from GOP legislators. She said last week that she could not “in good conscience” have K-12 schools reopen on their normal schedule with the resurgence of confirmed coronavirus cases in the state. In recent weeks, Kansas has had its worst seven-day rolling averages for the number of new daily cases.

“Our decisions must be informed by public health experts, not politics,” Kelly said in a statement Wednesday. “This vote puts our students, faculty, their families and our economy at risk.”

The state health department reported Wednesday that Kansas has had 24,104 confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, which was an increase of 770, or 3.3%, since Monday. It also reported one additional COVID-19-related fatality since then, raising the state's death toll to 308, though Johns Hopkins University pegs that figure at 317. The health department's head, Dr. Lee Norman, initially told the Board of Education that there had been 24,105 reported cases and 309 COVID-19-related deaths.

It's widely thought that infections are far more numerous but haven't been confirmed because of limited testing, particularly early in the pandemic, and because people can be infected without feeling sick.

“I want to be on the right side of history on this one,” said board member Ann Mah, a Topeka Democrat who supported the governor's proposed delay.

Republicans have an 8-2 majority on the board and Kelly needed four GOP votes to prevail. Her plan received three.

Conservatives and Republican leaders have argued that it’s inappropriate — and highly damaging to the economy — for Kelly to impose “one size fits all” restrictions to check the spread of the novel coronavirus. The law requiring the state school board’s approval to delay the reopening of schools also has allowed counties to opt out of an order Kelly issued on July 2 to require people to wear masks in public and at their workplaces.

The board's vote came the same day Sedgwick County's health officer ordered bars closed except for carryout and curbside services from Friday through Sept. 9 and dropped the limit on public gatherings from 45 to 15.

But recent guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advocate that school reopening plans start “with a goal of having students physically present in school.” Educators and state and local officials agree that children benefit from interacting with each other and that in-person classes generally are better for instruction than online classes.

Kansas also has a long tradition of letting local school districts set their own schedules and decide what’s taught and how their buildings operate. The board approved 1,100 pages of guidelines for reopening schools last week but did not impose mandates in keeping with that tradition.

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