Reopening plans approved for WSD, KSD
KELLOGG — The Kellogg and Wallace School Districts had their 2020 school reopening plans approved by both their respective Boards of Trustees, as well as the Panhandle Health District (PHD) recently.
On Wednesday night, the KSD Board was given a cliff notes version of the district’s committee built 47-page plan, with several minutes being spent on each individual school’s reopening plans, especially the schedules that they plan to operate on.
Wallace approved their plan late last week, with some minor discussion surrounding their mask policies, as well as the use of face masks for students and staff.
Each district was required to construct a plan for each of the three categories that were agreed upon by the Idaho State Board of Education, which the KSD has color coded as green, yellow and red.
Those categories are defined as:
Category 1 (green) includes no or limited community transmission. Schools in that category should open buildings for face-to-face classes with physical distancing and sanitation procedures, the state plan recommends.
Category 2 (yellow) includes minimal to moderate community transmission. Schools in that category should consider a range of options from full opening to limited or staggered use of school buildings.
Category 3 (red) includes large-scale community transmission that impacts health care staffing or sees multiple cases in schools, mass gatherings or health care facilities. Those schools should consider short- or long-term closures.
These categories are meant to be flexible and PHD will monitor and designate what category each community operates in and when they need to upgrade or downgrade.
According to multiple reports from the state of Idaho, most districts will open and operate in Category 2 at the beginning of the 2020/21 school year.
That means that most of the schools in both the WSD and KSD will be utilizing a hybrid schedule with in-person and remote instruction being the main structure of the schedule.
Unlike previously reports that schools had varying mask requirements for staff, the Kellogg School District has agreed that all district staff will be required to wear masks.
Both districts are still figuring out how athletics will work in the fall, which is a slower moving process due to the needed coordination between multiple districts across the region.
Kellogg School Board chairwoman Bonnie Farmin made a statement that really applies to both districts and the people in the two communities.
“I know how hard people worked on this, it was agonizing and there were so many moving parts,” Farmin said. “We’re just going to have to wing it and do what we do. Everyone needs to realize that there will be changes to this plan. It’ll be beyond our control, but any changes will be in trying to keep our staff and students safe as we try to get through this pandemic.”
The Wallace School District is set to reopen for the 2020/21 school year on Aug. 27, while Kellogg will be heading back on Sept. 8.
Both approved plans have been published on the Shoshone News-Press Facebook page.
