KELLOGG — Students of the Kellogg School District will once again embrace the hybrid schedule they utilized at the beginning of the school year.

According to KSD Superintendent Nancy Larsen, Shoshone County's move to a "red" COVID-19 risk level by the Panhandle Health District has prompted a change in how kids will attend school.

Starting Nov. 4, elementary age students will go to school four days in-class with Wednesday as a digital day. Middle and high school students will go back to the hybrid model, using the purple and gold schedule with half in-person and half digital learning.

"We realize this is an inconvenience for families, but we also have to balance this with safety concerns we have for our community and staff," Larsen said.

With the change back to hybrid on Nov. 4, KSD students will have only attended school fully in person for roughly 2-3 weeks this school year. Hybrid schooling was utilized the entire month of September and the early parts of October. During the 2-3 weeks of fully in-person schedules, students were required to wear face coverings at school and on the school buses.

"Our plans have been ongoing and we’re using the best information available to us at this time," Larsen said. "We will also begin monitoring daily numbers in our schools. If cases escalate, then we may need to make more drastic measures. We will do our best to inform you of these changes."

The proposal to revert back to hybrid scheduling was approved unanimously by the Kellogg School Board in an emergency meeting at the KSD office Thursday night. The documents detailing the hybrid schedule can be found at the KSD website.

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In the Wallace School District, Superintendent Todd Howard and the WSD board also announced a similar decision on Thursday.

"Our plan to move to a full five-day schedule was postponed due to the increase in the 7-day average and positive test results in the county," Howard said.

Students of WSD have been utilizing a hybrid schedule since they started school in September. A plan to get the schools back to fully in person by Nov. 5 was passed earlier this month, but has now since been scrapped.

"We are working off our most current board approved operation plan," Howard said. "In that plan, movement between levels will be directly tied to CDC guidelines in regards to 7-day case averages, positive testing percentages, and the ability to correctly implement safety measures."

He added that in regard to public sentiment concerning this decision, he always has and will continue to support the work of their COVID-19 committee, district leadership and the Wallace School Board in regard to those decisions.

"Those groups are tasked with the very difficult duty of synthesizing rapidly changing data from each classroom/school, local/state/federal health organizations, and local/state/federal government officials. From that vast amount of information, decisions will be made to develop one single plan that is meant to best serve over 450 individual students and over 80 individual employees in the Wallace School District. Unfortunately, it isn’t feasible to create 450 individual student plans or 80 individual staff plans."

Documents detailing WSD's operation plan can be found on their website.

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The Mullan School District will continue to utilize fully in-person scheduling going forward, as their lower enrollment numbers make social distancing much easier to perform.