It’s finally safe to reopen Ada County schools during COVID battle, health district says
Days after changing which factors it considers, Central District Health cleared all Ada County school districts to resume in-person classes Tuesday afternoon.
Central District Health dropped the Boise, West Ada and Kuna school districts into the yellow category of COVID-19’s community spread in Idaho’s back-to-school guidelines. Yellow comes with a host of recommendations, including a mix of in-person and online learning, as well as sending students back to classrooms five days a week.
Local health districts only make a recommendation for schools in the state’s back-to-school plan. Local school boards must decide how much, or how little, of that advice to follow.
But parents shouldn’t expect to send their students back to the classroom immediately.
The Boise School District warned it will take two weeks to fully prepare for the return of students as it hires bus drivers and switches its food supply from grab-and-go meals to ones served on site. It has also announced a draft plan that will phase in its 25,000 students instead of rushing them all back at once.
It will finalize that plan Thursday.
Boise has targeted Sept. 21 as the first day that preschool through second-grade students could return to campus. They would attend in-person classes two days a week and learn online the other three days.
Boise would then phase in the rest of its elementary students on an alternating schedule Oct. 5 before bringing back its junior high and high school students Oct. 19. A return to in-person classes five days a week wouldn’t come until Nov. 9, according to a phased plan the Boise School Board passed last week.
The West Ada School District’s back-to-school plans also allows for students to return to classrooms on a similar alternating-day schedule in the yellow category. It will bring back its 40,000 students Sept. 14, district spokesperson Char Jackson said. Preschoolers and kindergartners will be in class every day to start.
West Ada started online classes Tuesday and saw widespread technical issues, according to an email sent to parents.
Kuna already began in-person classes Aug. 31 on an alternating schedule, against Central District Health advice. It announced that two students, including a second-grader, tested positive for the coronavirus by the end of the week. Another student was considered a probable case.
NEW DATA FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL CATEGORIES
Central District Health announced Friday that it would simplify how it determines where schools fall in Idaho’s three-colored, back-to-school guidelines.
Ada County had remained in the red since the start of August. Red comes with a recommendation to shift all learning online, which Boise and West Ada did.
Central District Health considered a host of factors, including health care staffing, the ability to determine where someone was exposed to the virus and outbreaks in communal settings like schools, health care facilities and mass gatherings.
But it simplified its recommendations Friday, deciding to use only the two-week average of daily case numbers. Those numbers are normalized for population.
Ada County averaged 14.52 confirmed and probable cases a day per 100,000 people in the past two weeks. A case rate below 20 qualifies it for the yellow category. It would need to drop to 3 or less to qualify for the green category, Idaho’s lowest.
Ada County’s case rate has steadily dropped since peaking at 43.53 per 100,000 people on July 12. It was 21.4 two weeks ago and 17.07 last week.
The new method allowed schools in Valley County (4.39) to drop to the green category. Elmore (9.09) and Boise (5.47) counties remained in the yellow.
Central District Health set higher thresholds for Valley and Boise counties due to their small populations. Those counties can qualify for green at 5 cases or less.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 2:31 PM.
