NEWS

NEWS | page 4 COVID COLOR CHANGES

An overview of the changes Lake Pend Oreille School District has made to the COVID-19 color plan.

By Chris Koch

News Editor

Lake Pend Orielle School Disctrict modified their original COVID-19 protocols. The original color plan included green (no community spread), yellow (Minimal to moderate community spread), orange (substantial risk), and red (high-critical community or individual school transmission).

Now, the LPOSD school board has adopted a new system that omits the orange phase from the original plan. This allows for more flexibility in the red phase. The new red plan now includes the “Substantial Risk” category as well as the highly-critical community or individual school transmission category. “The Red Plan means that we could continue going to school 5 days a week...with just some increased safety measures, and that is going to be school by school,” said Lake Pend Orielle School Disctrict Superintendent Tom Albertson.

There will not be many changes from the Yellow Plan to the Red plan. One example is that the lunch schedule would change as well when students wear face coverings and when they do not at the elementary level.

The teacher’s association played a role in changing the color system. The association and superintendent speak often to try to accommodate for troubles that develop. Albertson said, “Through conversation with the teacher’s association, we felt that [the orange plan] just didn’t fit.”

The school board felt prompted to change this system after talking with the teacher’s association and discussing observations made by superintendent Tom Alberson, “We’ve had none to very little student to student spread within schools.” Albertson said. He noticed that students who are contracting the virus are students who are living in a household with an adult that has tested positive.

With this in mind, the school board decided that the safety protocols set in place at the schools were effective and that being in school is not very threatening to the students’ health and safety. Albertson discussed a situation that could arise that would effect schools, “What would really probably shut our schools down, is going to be the health of our workers.” Employees in the maintenance, transportation, teaching, and office departments are all crucial for the school to function.

The school could potentailly shut down in the new red plan. Albertson said, “The only time we would go to a full remote learning or partial remote learning would be if there was a local or state stay-at-home order.”

Albertson discussed another possible way school would go to full or partial remote learning that is tied in with the new red plan. He explained that if an individual school in the district had a really large student to student spread within the facility, it would not affect the entire district, but only the school where the transmission occurred. This school would shut down for around two weeks until the threat of getting exposed at school is gone.

Schools could still resort to full remote learning, but the school board wanted flexibility to stay in school and maximize learning time for students. Based on observation, schools have not been risky places to be during this pandemic. The safety protocols like sanitizing and wearing masks have proven to be effective. This new plan will be embracing this observation and using it to the school districts advantage to keep kids in school and as safe as possible.

Original

No community spread. Face coverings will be encouraged and there will be smaller classes.

Minimal to moderate community spread. Mandatory face coverings and modified schedule with smaller class sizes.

Substantial Risk. Students will only go to school 2 days a week while the other 3 are completed remotely. No community spread. Face coverings will be encouraged and there will be smaller class sizes.

Minimal to moderate community spread. Mandatory face coverings and modified schedule with smaller classes.

Substantial risk or highly critical community or individual school transmission. Class is done remotely if a local or state stay at home order is implemented.