PRIEST RIVER — At a meeting Monday evening, the West Bonner County School Board moved to adopt an updated reopening plan after initially moving to blended learning this week under Panhandle Health’s “orange” or “moderate risk” categorization for Bonner County.

Starting on Tuesday, Nov. 10, all students in the district will attend in-person five days a week while the county is in Category 2 (falling within an orange rating from Panhandle Health), and be required to wear a mask when it is impossible to maintain social distance.

Wilma Hahn, West Bonner County Educators Association president and a 6th-grade teacher at Idaho Hill Elementary, said in a survey of her school about 48% of teachers expressed a preference for masks should the board move to a five-day-a-week model, with roughly 33% neutral and the rest opposed.

Several school teachers and staff are in an at-risk category, she said, so limiting risk factors are important to them.

“They’re willing to be in the classroom,” she said, “but masks are important.”

Should the county move to Category 3, or “red,” K-6 students and special education students will attend five days a week while students in secondary schools move to a hybrid model.

The move to keep special education and K-6 students in schools during Category 3 and all students in school during Category 2 was for numerous reasons addressed by teachers in the district who attended.

Several teachers in attendance, including Susie Luckey, principal Idaho Hill Elementary, said parents called saying they had major challenges with keeping their children at home — especially for parents who have to work.

“I’ve had some parents call and say it’s a real challenge finding childcare,” Luckey said.

While secondary school students may still have some challenges in blended learning, using that model for older students does not necessitate that parents find childcare or stay at home.

Still, older students also have significant challenges with blended learning said Amber Williams, principal at Priest River Junior High School. For one, the school is running out of laptops to send home with students.

More laptops were ordered in May, said superintendent Paul Anselmo, however, the laptops are currently on backorder and the school has yet to receive them.

For students who have a laptop but lack connectivity, they’ve been allowed to come to school grounds for internet access on the days they are not assigned, Williams said. However, they do not attend classrooms on those days.

While schools do blended learning, older students are also often recruited to help watch younger siblings, Williams said — making it difficult for them to focus on lessons.

In addition, some students rely on meals and other services provided by the schools, she said.

“Parents are stressed,” she said, “[and] some of these kids are not getting their basic needs met.”

K-6 students have also had more challenges learning remotely, several teachers said, as do special education students in most cases. Blended learning also presents challenges for families who have little or no connectivity to the internet — a large portion of WBCSD’s families.

Even when families have an internet connection, the blending learning model is also a big challenge for educators, several teachers said. Instructors in blended classrooms have to essentially teach two separate classes, take time to prepare materials for both and tackle the technology required for remote learning.

The board also discussed the possibility of offering a blended model for families who wanted it — however, this option was eliminated because of the added strain on teachers.

Many teachers took a large portion of their weekend preparing lessons for the hybrid classes, Anselmo said. The board might also presume that families who were significantly concerned over COVID-19 would have chosen the online-only Idaho Digital Learning Academy, which was offered at the beginning of the school year.

“It would be a hard push, to allow some people to go online. It was really hard for teachers to do both,” he said.

The choice was difficult, Anselmo said, because there were downsides no matter what the board chose.

“We have parents, they need to work. And we have teachers, they fear for their safety,” he said. “I keep coming back to, what’s best for the kids? I think it’s best for kids to be in school, especially K-6 [grade].”

Editor's note: This article was amended to more accurately define Panhandle Health's translation of category 2 into their "orange" category.