PRETTY PRAIRIE, Kan. — Pretty Prairie Superintendent Randy Hendrickson is excited for school to start in person this week.
"For every school district, this is an incredibly exciting and stressful time with the five and a half months of not having students," Hendrickson said. "We're also unique in that, as a small, rural school, that we are increasing in enrollment and we have new staff members and so we have a little bit of that added organizational piece that has to be taken care of."
Not all students in Pretty Prairie will be masked.
"Our board, in our reopening plan, we do not have masks at our Pre-K through 4 level," Hendrickson said.
Pretty Prairie's enrollment has gone up 40 kids over the last three years and may eclipse 300 this year before all is said and done.
"We serve as a bedroom community to Wichita and to Hutch," Hendrickson said. "I think that affordable housing and low gas prices makes it affordable for families to live here and work somewhere else."
Hendrickson said his staff misses their kids and they are looking forward to having them back in the building.