By Eric Valentine
There’s no telling how big an impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on the 2020–21 school year, but now students and parents will have three additional weeks to plan for it.
Blaine County School District trustees unanimously approved a motion put forth by trustee Lara Stone last Thursday to delay the start of the school year, pushing the opening date from Aug. 17 to Sept. 8. Teachers will arrive roughly two weeks prior to students, as usual, on Aug. 26.
In a separate decision, trustees elected to keep the starting date as-is for principals and secretaries who arrived on campuses Monday to what Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes indicated would be a deluge of phone calls from parents trying to figure out what’s going on. The move is not without added cost to an already-depleted BCSD budget. Setting the calendar back three weeks but having principals and secretaries arrive at their normal time adds 10 days to their work schedule and salary. It wasn’t clear how much that will cost the district as of press deadline Tuesday, but estimates were in the $100,000 range.
The decision Thursday followed a Tuesday board meeting in which there was a lengthy and “not pretty” discussion—as board president Keith Roark described it—about the difficult process of reopening amid COVID-19 concerns and restrictions.
“We absolutely have to have the cooperation of our administration as we move forward into what may be and probably is the most important school year this school district has ever encountered. In criticizing the plan that we have so far, we are not criticizing the people who put it together,” Roark said. “We have not adequately provided a meaningful voice to our teachers in the planning for this coming year. Teachers need to have a seat at the table, and they need to have that seat before the table is set and the food is served.”
Roark directed his fellow trustees Tuesday to come back 48 hours later with specific motions the board could discuss and vote on.
Ay, There’s The Rub
Trustee Stone came back with several ideas to put on the table. The most pressing one called for the Sept. 8 opening, which would push the last day of school into June, but would be as least disruptive as possible to existing calendar dates, such as holidays and spring break. In addition, it would make both the first and second semesters an equal amount of days, 86.
The first-term trustee said she ran the proposal by a number of stakeholders across the district.
“There was overwhelming support, but it wasn’t everybody,” she acknowledged.
Stone noted that the major downfall of the late opening is the impact it could have on certain students. For instance, kids enrolled in Advanced Placement courses will have three less weeks to learn and study content before taking those rigorous exams, which allow students to earn college credit if they perform well.
Stone told her fellow trustees that since COVID is impacting all schools nationwide, she was hopeful the A.P. exam schedule would follow suit.
“I hope to see the testing times change, too,” Stone said.
Three-Plan Plan
South Central Public Health District officials still must OK the BCSD reopening plans. And, ultimately, the plans must align with anything Governor Brad Little and the Idaho State Board of Education have to say. Idaho is currently in the most lenient phase of the reopening process, but with recent surges in COVID-19 infections, that could still change.
Right now BCSD’s reentry includes three potential scenarios:
- Plan A, in which in-person learning resumes as usual with social distancing and enhanced sanitation practices in place
- Plan B, in which in-person learning resumes but is staggered so that only a portion of students are physically in schools at one time
- Plan C, in which all learning takes place virtually
Plan C triggered its own motion Thursday night. Trustees voted to establish an online learning committee that would be chaired by trustee Dan Turner. The committee is charged with developing best practices for virtual learning and ensuring that all students have equitable access to virtual learning across the district.
In an attempt to expedite board decisions while still providing a broad range of stakeholder input, trustees also voted to launch a vetting committee for all re-entry matters. The committee will be chaired by Stone but made up of a broad cross-section of district stakeholders from staff to residents. The committee is charged with making sure input from all potentially impacted stakeholders has been heard before presenting a policy to be voted on by the school board.
Play Ball!
The school board also approved a plan by the district athletics department to resume practice and conditioning for sports teams starting Aug. 10, barring something unforeseen. The re-opening plan is limited, however, to in-squad practices. Scrimmages and games against teams from other school districts is still to be determined.