Bishop Kelly to start school against recommendations. ‘We feel we can open safely.’
Central District Health recommends that all schools in Ada County start the year online due to substantial community spread of the coronavirus. But Bishop Kelly High plans to open its doors Monday, Aug. 17, with its own prevention efforts.
The private Catholic school announced the plan during a virtual town hall Thursday evening hosted by its president, Rich Raimondi, and principal, Mike Caldwell.
The pair recognized Central District Health’s recommendation. They noted that the Boise School District will start the year online and that West Ada has delayed the first day of school until Sept. 8. But they said they believe their protocols allow students to return to BK safely.
“The short answer is not all schools are the same,” Caldwell said during the online broadcast. “West Ada or the Boise School District are very different from Bishop Kelly in terms of our plan and what we’ve done over the summer to add additional faculty and to get our class sizes down.
“... Every school is very unique and different. And we feel we can open safely.”
The Idaho Statesman reached out to Raimondi and Caldwell for interviews Thursday night. Neither responded by 2 p.m. Friday.
Bishop Kelly will use an alternating schedule to limit the number of students on campus. Freshmen and sophomores will come to school two or three days a week. Juniors and seniors will attend in-person classes two days a week. .
The school plans to have all of its approximately 800 students on campus together starting Sept. 3.
Raimondi, who is also the chairman of the St. Luke’s Health System Board of Directors, said the school has worked with Central District Health on its plans for months. It also spent an hour on the phone with the health district Thursday. And he noted that the school received input from leaders of the St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus hospitals.
“It’s important that you know we’re not doing this in a vacuum,” Raimondi said. “We’re doing this with professionals that are giving us advice on what to do.”
Bishop Kelly will require students to wear masks. It hired additional teachers to reduce class sizes to about 16 students per class. And it installed a $75,000 air filtration system designed to kill pathogens.
It will not assign lockers to prevent crowding in hallways. It has committed to cleaning desks after every class. And it will extend the passing time students have between periods.
Parents are responsible for monitoring their children for fevers and symptoms. Bishop Kelly has not settled yet on a busing policy, and it is still weighing multiple options for lunch around the school instead of in the cafeteria.
Raimondi urged parents to follow similar procedures at home.
“Whether you believe the science or not, we are asking that you do as we ask with masks, distancing and hygiene,” he said. “I truly believe if we do this, and we’ve got a lot of data from around the world … we can turn around the community spread we’re seeing.”
Caldwell said Bishop Kelly does not have a full-time online learning option like Boise and West Ada. But it will work with students and faculty who don’t feel comfortable returning to school while in Category 3 (red) of Idaho’s back-to-school guidelines.
Central District Health placed Ada County in the highest category of community spread Monday. It will re-evaluate the latest data and make new determinations each Monday.
A red determination is a recommendation to close school buildings. Each school district, private school or charter school must decide how to handle that recommendation, and the decision to open lies with them.
Raimondi said Bishop Kelly could not fully reopen yet with everyone on campus in the red category, because it might increase community spread. But he said moving classes fully online does not provide a good educational experience.
“The other reason that we want to have students on campus — and get to where we have all students on campus — is we’re concerned about their health and all components of their health,” Raimondi said. “Not just physical, but mental, emotional, spiritual and social.”
Bishop Kelly is not alone in its push to open classrooms despite health district recommendations. The Vallivue School District plans to use an alternating schedule for in-person learning starting Aug. 19 despite Canyon County’s status in the red category. And West Ada’s school board amended its back-to-school plan so in-person classes could resume with Ada County still in the red category.
West Ada, the state’s largest school district, has since partially walked back that declaration, saying it was targeting special-education students, English-language learners and career-technical education programs, IdahoEdNews reported.
Bishop Kelly also violated a city health order to host an outdoor graduation in June that drew around 1,000 people. Boise Mayor Lauren McLean limited public and private gatherings to less than 250 people at the time.
The city did not enforce that order though.
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 2:11 PM.
