Idaho schools

NWPB's Lauren Paterson reports on a bill to retain teachers in rural schools in Idaho / Runtime - 53 secondsShortages of qualified teachers are affecting…

Plenty of factors have brought Idaho’s larger districts closer to reopening. But none are unique to Idaho. Seventy-six percent of respondents said they wanted to see K-12 students back in the classroom, at least part-time, according to a statewide Boise State University survey released last month. For Republican respondents and parents of K-12 kids, those numbers skewed even higher — 86 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

That cumulative total — at least 4,818 cases, involving students, teachers and staff — is significantly higher than the weekly totals Health and Welfare has released since October. Using those weekly reports, Idaho Education News in December pegged the number of K-12 cases at slightly more than 3,300, based on the totals from the weekly Health and Welfare reports.

Idaho public schools are serving 4,554 fewer students than they did last school year, marking the first time since 1997 that the state has seen a decline in enrollment.

Some schools across the country are under pressure to reopen for in-person classes, even in states like Idaho where coronavirus cases continue to rise out of control.

The Education Working Group requested the Legislature take up the issue of school closure authority when Gov. Brad Little convenes an extraordinary session of the Legislature the week of Aug. 24. Currently, health districts do have the authority to issue quarantine orders or close schools.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little says individual school districts will decide whether to bring students back to the classroom this fall. But he says the expectation is that schools will not be closed for an extended period.

Gov. Brad Little still wants to see Idaho schools reopen next month — but he’s not sure that can happen in the state’s coronavirus hotspots. “I think the answer is, it depends,” Little said during a news conference Thursday morning, one day after the state reported its highest one-day death toll from the coronavirus outbreak.

Reclaim Idaho hopes to put its initiative on the November ballot. It would require the state to raise state income taxes for corporations and people who make more than $250,000 a year. The money would be routed to public schools.

As the world has shifted, so has education. Teachers and schools have risen to the occasion to deliver lessons and learning from afar. They have moved…