Idaho governor, health officials leave school closures up to local administrators
Idaho officials said in a Sunday conference call that they will not implement statewide school cancellations over coronavirus, IdahoEdNews reporter Clark Corbin said in a series of tweets.
Gov. Brad Little and Idaho Department of Health and Welfare director Dave Jeppeson were on the call Sunday afternoon, which Corbin said lasted around 15 minutes. “Education stakeholders” from around the state were invited to listen in.
Little asked local superintendents to consult the latest information when making decisions in their districts, Corbin reported. Jeppeson reportedly said IDHW and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “would prefer” that Idaho schools remain open. And Jeppeson said it’s “much less disruptive” for schools to close for a short time than for a longer period.
The call came a few hours after Idaho’s teachers union called for state officials to shutter schools because of the virus. In a news release Sunday morning, the Idaho Education Association asked officials to close schools for a minimum of three weeks to prevent further spread of the pandemic disease COVID-19. The first confirmed case in Idaho was reported Friday.
“Closing our schools will help prevent this disease from peaking, which would severely compromise our health care system and force a triage of life-saving care for patients,” said Layne McInelly, president of the Idaho Education Association, in the release. “Schools are environments where viruses are likely to spread exponentially. The day a case is confirmed in one of our schools is the day after we should have closed the schools. The time to act is now.”
The association’s board of directors plans to release a series of recommendations shortly.
Following the call, Boise School District announced it would close schools through March 30, while West Ada School District announced it would hold classes on Monday.
“This was an extremely hard decision, but agencies at every level of government urged us to continue school next week. We are continuing school tomorrow,” superintendent Mary Ann Ranells wrote in a statement.
Cassia County School District said Sunday that it would close schools from March 17 to March 29 following a day of preparation Monday to transition to digital learning. Twin Falls School District, Wendell School District and Lewiston Independent School District will also shutter to students until March 30.
Across Idaho, several school districts and colleges have already canceled events and classes. Blaine County School District closed all schools until April 5 following the confirmation of a COVID-19 case in the county on Saturday. Local colleges including Boise State University, Northwest Nazarene University, College of Idaho, College of Western Idaho, Concordia University School of Law and Idaho State University-Meridian have moved to online courses.
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 was an ISU-Meridian student who attended an out-of-state conference, university officials said. By Sunday afternoon, five cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed statewide: two in Ada County, one in Blaine County, one in Teton County and the fifth in the South-Central Public Health district, which is based in Twin Falls.
This story was originally published March 15, 2020 at 10:52 AM.
