NAMPA — Idaho's Teachers' Union says the course of action for public schools in hot spots is clear — they should begin the year with online instruction. It's a clear decision for the Nampa School District, too.
All 14,000 students in the Nampa School District will log on to their first day.
"We have iPads for all of our elementary students and we have laptops for all of our secondary students," said district spokesperson Kathleen Tuck,
"The district will once again have hotspots available that we can check out to families."
One period in a school day that can't move online is lunch, and some students in the district depend on school for that meal.
We will have lunches available for all of our students whether they're in class or not, so it'll be a drive-by like it was before,
In the Spring, the district had free lunches for all students. That won't be the case this fall.
"We'll be going back to those who qualify for free and reduced lunch will still be able to receive those," said Tuck,
"And then we'll have a pay system set up where parents can go by and purchase the lunch that their child would have had if they would have been in school that day."
The district also announced a delayed start, which allows for an additional week of sorting through issues. It will be a busy one for teachers, according to Tuck.
"We can make sure all of our teachers are trained on all of the different platforms that are available and work through some of the problems we saw in the Spring," said Tuck.
Tuck says the frustrations are things like classes going longer than others and how many hours of instruction per week.
"Generally, it will be a regular school day, and we will have one day a week where we don't introduce new material because it was a little bit overwhelming."
Every two weeks, the district will review data and decide which tier they should stay in. After two weeks they may be ready for a hybrid model, but they won't know for sure until that time.
