Making the Grade: School reopening guidelines

Michelle Edmonds and Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News discuss school reopening guidelines.

Morning.

I'm Michelle Edmondswith Idaho News Six.

We have alot of education news to get toand joining me as he has beenfor years now on making thegreat my buddy my partner,Kevin Richard from IdahoEducation News, keeping busyand keeping healthy right Kevbusy for sure and healthy sofar, yes gotta stay healthy.There's so much to write aboutright now there is we have somany topics to get to here onmaking the grade and one of thefun things if I can call itthat during the midst of thispandemic crisis, we have beenin is that.

We have been ableto have great interaction withour viewers during making thegreat so if you're joining uslive here on Facebook, we'dlove to get your input yourthoughts your questions as wediscuss a number of educationtopics.

We're talking fromschool reopening to lawsuitsbeing filed to something youmight vote on in November andeven a Supreme Court rulingthat just came down thismorning.

So we're gonna get toit all but Kevin as we've beenstarting and we're most peoplewant us to start is with howour schools.

To reopen in thefall and there's a Committeethat's looking into this, buteven they're struggling alittle bit to meet their owndeadlines well, and they said avery ambitious deadline.

I meanthis is a Committee that wasput together just very recentlywith the goal of trying to getguidelines in the hands ofschool officials by the end ofthis month.

Well, they're notgonna hit that deadline they'regonna meet again on Thursdayhopefully get guidelines in thehands of local school officialsby sometime next week.

Becausethe decision is ultimatelygoing to be made at the locallevel, it's gonna be schoolsuperintendents and trusteesand administrators trying todecide what school looks likein the fall.

This is strictlyan advisory Committee, but it'sone that educators are watchingclosely.

It's a non bindingagreement and it we'rescrolling through here you cansee they are using on thisCommittee.

This isn't justpoliticians.

We need to makesure that there are a fewpoliticians on here but when Ilook through this, it ismostly.

School Educ.Administrators differentdistricts investigators andultimately educators are theones that are gonna have tomake this decision.

It's a verydifferent dynamic than we sawin the spring where the stateboard of essentially closeschools for for the spring mayclose schools for about a monthand then with the guidelinesthat were you know were usedtowards the end of the schoolyear in accordance with thegovernor's Idaho rebounds planthe reopening, but essentiallykept the schools closed for thefor the year and.

Schools to goto their local health districtto get buy-in on reopening.That's not gonna be the casethis fall, you know schooldistricts.

Charter schools aregonna be able to make thatdecision without gettingapproval from the local healthdistricts.

Which as we've seenKevin a local health districtsare making different decisionsobviously last week bringingAda County back into phasethree of reopening, so it'sgoing to be a very localizedissue with what schooldistricts can open will openshould open all those questionsout there right.

If you thinkit's a different If you thinkit's gonna inconsistent if youlook at seven different healthdistricts and 44 counties,there's gonna be a lot ofvariation when we get down toA hundred and 15 schooldistricts and 60 or 70 charterschools depending on how youcount the charter schools.

Alot of decisions are gonna bemade local.

It's gonna be a bigpart of our job to figure outwho's open who's close and whatin the Underwood guidelines.What do you expect?

Do you haveany expectations about what'sgonna come out of thegovernor's Committee forreopening?

Have there been anyhints?

Exactly what theseguidelines look like cuz ifwe're talking about theDistrict health departments andwhat their guidelines will be,of course, they're sitting onthis Committee as well.

Isn'tit one of those where some ofthese guidelines may go by thewayside come fall?

Well, weknow the governor is verybullish about the idea ofgetting schools reopened forthe fall, and he's not alone onthat.

The surveys that we'veseen in the West data and Boiseshowed that the parents aregeneral.

Of the idea ofreopening, they wanna make surethey can be done safely as doeseverybody.

So I think thatgoing into it, I would expectthis Committee is going to tryto be as as permissive aspossible as encouraging aspossible.

Try to come up withguidelines that will.

Try toenable tool to open and givethem a path to open and safelyas possible and suggestions andguidelines in that direction.but we'll see and we're gonnahave those guidelines probablyfairly soon well.

Hope someoneI know school districts arewaiting for them as well.

We'restarting to get a few commentsand of course we're here onmaking the grade.

I'm MichelleEdmonds with Idaho News sixhere with Kevin Richard fromIdaho Education News.

Let'stalk a little bit about theacademic standards that arebeing rewritten even during themidst of Corona virus, therewas a first meeting with themathematics standards that wasput into place this week andKevin first of all before weget into the logistics of themeeting itself and some of theissues that happened there canyou tell me a little bit.

Therewriting of the standards andwhy this is happening well,it's happening because we'vehad a debate in our for thepast five legislative sessionsthe academic standards namelyin math and English language,arts and science.

It's beenvery controversial at the stateHousewhat happened this pastlegislative session was thatthe House and Senate couldn'tagree on what they want thestandards to look like thisyear, but they agreed on theidea of putting together aCommittee a legislativeCommittee.

Look at rewritingthe academic standards with theidea of changing the standardsto get away from the commoncore aligned standards that wehave in math and Englishlanguage arts and alsorewriting the science standardsthat have been debated about sovigorously at the State Housefor the past several years now,you also have State Departmentof Education Committee islooking at the nuts and boltsof what these standards mightlook like.

So this has been along time coming.

This has beena hot button issue at the StateHouse for a long time so now.This summer, we're getting downto the beginning of the processof.

What will the new Sanderslook like how will we writethat work?

What will change andhow will that affect schoolsthat have to come up with acurriculum that aligns to a newset of standards and as we'veseen as you and I are coveringthe statehouse over this issue,These are contentious meetingsthat bring houses, which is whyit's important that in thiszooming day and age that we'renow living in that thegovernor's orders be followedthat these sorts of publicmeetings.

Public and the firstround of the math standardsrewriting was certainly notpublic in the beginning.

It wasnot a good start in terms oftransparency.

There's nogetting around that the meetingwas scheduled to begin in didbegin at 10 o 'clock on Mondaymorning if you're trying totune in at 10 AM to get get inon the start of the meeting,you're I flock there is no wayinto the meeting until theState Department of Educationcame back and issued thepasswords to Hopes to log onand listen that happened about45 minutes into the meeting andinstead of stopping the meetingand trying to get the accessissues resolved the Committeejust kept on working and keptthe start of the meeting goingso the first chunk of the firstmeeting occurred in Radiosilence.

That's not a good wayto begin this process at allfrom a transparency standpoint.What did Idaho Education Newshere from the State Departmentof Education over this, youknow.

You know, I think theymade it out to be you know kindof a mixed up in terms ofgetting the the passwordinformation out but you know Iget you know I go back to youknow you started the meeting weflagged that there was aproblem with access.

We'rehaving a hard time getting inand in the meeting proceededfor like I said about 45minutes before the passwordswere idd and that's a concernand you mentioned the governor.The guidelines during thepandemic the guide has beenvery clear that governmentagencies have to make sure thatthat meetings are accessible tothe public, you know even in aclimate where you knowimpossible to access meetingspace that you have to be ableto access them in a virtualsetting and transparency iskey, especially in a issuecoming out of the StateDepartment of Education.

Therewill be many more of thesemeetings coming up.

So how doesthe public get involved if theydo want to be able to see thesemeetings Well, hopefully therewill.

A better mechanism inplace for future meetings sothat people will be able toaccess the meetings and youknow as you said it's a longprocess.

We will be on top ofit.

We'll try to keep people assurprised as possible and IdahoNews dot Org about whenmeetings are coming up and howyou can how you can listen andget involved.

Another hugetopic that Idaho education Newshas been writing about fourmonths now the legal wranglingsover the group called ReclaimIdaho and you might understandreclaimed Idaho.

You mightremember them not necessarilyfrom.

But from Medicaidexpansion back in 2018, theywere the groups and nonprofitgroup that pushed for Medicaidexpansion in the state, got iton the ballot, and of coursethat past they are now into aproject, A 170 million voterinitiative in order to fundeducation in a whole new way,and they had to get enoughsignatures.

Obviously Kevin aswe know the process to get thisissue on the November ballotand that's where the hiccupcame in with Corona virus in.Right, that's where this like Isaid there was a hiccup.

Imean, Reclaim Idaho wasgathering signatures in midMarch.

Proceeding towards inApril thirtieth deadline to tryto get the necessary signaturesto get this initiative on theballot, then the pandemicstruck the group suspended itsoperations suspended.

It'sface-to-face signaturegathering in the face of apandemic and then the issuegets really complicated andthen it becomes a legal matter.Reclaim Idaho.

That have triedto to to talk to the governor'soffice talk to the Secretary ofState's office to try to comeup with some sort of analternative route.

Some way togather signatures and continuethe campaign even when face toface signature gathering is isyou know is on hold?

The groupsays that the governor and theSecretary of state were offthose efforts.

I gave the thegroup no path forward.

No noplan B so we reclaim Idaho tookthe case to federal court andjust last.

A federal judge LinnWindmill ruled in the group'sfavor and said that yes thestate's in action constituted aviolation of Reclaim IdahoFirst Amendment rights becauseit made it impossible for thegroup to get its initiative onthe ballot.

So here's where weare at this point federal judgehas ordered the state to dosomething to accommodateReclaim Idaho and the optionsthat he presented last week.Well, there were two, he said.You could either put the.

Onthe ballot straight away.suspend the whole signaturegathering process and and justqualify the based on thesignatures that had alreadybeen collected free Covid-, 19,or you can provide a mechanismfor Reclaim Idaho to gathersignatures electronically andget group 48 days to finish thejob and try to meet a reviseddeadline to get to get back onthe ballot.

The state has optedfor either and it has said it'sgonna appeal this case to theCircuit Court of Appeals.

Andbasically they asked windmillto set aside his ruling fromlast week to allow the appealto go forward the judge said.No.

My ruling remains in placeand on Monday as windmill wasissuing that order saying thathe's not going to stay hisdecision from last week, he'sstill wants to proceed underthe ruling from last week,Reclaim Idaho went to court andsaid we're filing a motionasking the court to put thisinitiative on the ballot.because at this point it'sclear.

They feel like the statehas.

Is not gonna cooperate.It's not going to accommodateand it's not going to honor thejudge's ruling.

So they'reasking the judge to to put theballot initiative before votersno questions asked so a lot oflegal wrangling still becomewe're waiting to see weanticipate the the state filingits appeal to the Circuit Courtcould come any day now, so thisis far from resolved, but it'sbeen It Forward you.

That isgonna be on the ballot inNovember.

If it is on theballot, this is a hundred and 70voters facing supplementallevies as we've seen inDistrict one district.

It'sgoing to be a very heated if itgets on the ballot, I wouldimagine that you're gonna havefolks on both sides probably agood deal of money put into acampaign on this kind of aninitiative.

This is the kind ofthing that we'll get astatewide lobbying groups,maybe even some Nationalattention and it will befascinating.

Just to watch andsee what the legal wranglingsare here too, because we're inan unprecedented time and tohave a voter initiative hit ourballot without appropriately.Signatures According to what'ssupposed to happen in normaldays, this could be fascinatingas we move forward and seewhere the public stands and allthis, but also where the courtstand and it's been a verydramatic turnaround becausewhen Reclaim Idaho hassuspended its efforts in March,I think a lot of us myselfincluded thought that was thelast we're gonna hear aboutthis.

Ballot measure in this2020 election cycle well if thelawsuit came on June eighthjust last week.

Judge Windmillissued his ruling and citedwith her claim Idaho and reallyput the onus on the state toeither comply or you know thatthe state has decided it'sgoing to try it's locked inCircuit Court This really wasunexpected to me and and Ithink probably a lot ofobservers all of a sudden weare talking about what would bea major.

Funding shift for forKel if it if it passeshundred and 70 million dollarsthat would definitely pay for alot of teachers.

Yes, so whilewe're on the topic.

Suitsbecause that's fun to talkabout during Corona virusright.

You post a story atIdaho Education News talkingabout state SuperintendentSherry Barras lawsuit.

And ofcourse we have already talkedabout that lawsuit quite a bitover the last couple of monthsand it coming out not in herfavor for moving technical jobsfrom her Department to thestate boards control, butspecifically here you now havesome numbers with how much thislawsuit.

Taxpayers Kevin giveus a little bit of a handleWe're getting part of thatanswer at least what we foundout this week was that theBoise law firm that was hiredto represent the Legislature,one of the defendants insuperintendent the RS lawsuitthe law, the firm representingthe Legislature, received closeto a hundred and $42000 overthe past couple of months todefend the Legislature and asit turned out to defend theLegislature successfully incourt that's only part.

Thebills for taxpayers, we don'tknow yet how much David Leroythe former lieutenant governorand former state attorneygeneral, will get for his workrepresenting I Barra in thelawsuit.

We know that hiscontract calls for up to$200000.

We don't know how muchhe will receive, but either waythat's going to be taxpayerfunded as well as thehundred and 42000 that that thelegislatures attorneys receivedwe knew this is gonna be.

Xylawsuit and now we're juststarting to get some of thosenumbers and we should mentionthere was a third partyinvolved and that was the stateBoard of education, but theywent in House for the councils.You might call it right theyThey were represented by theattorney General's office theLegislature opted to go outsideCouncil superintend Navarro wasinstructed to get outsideCouncil the attorney General'soffice said.

Now we're we'renot gonna be able to representyou in this case as.

She hiredDavid to represent her he wasmade into a kind of a specialdeputy for a general on a baron behalf, we should knowhopefully by next week exactlyhow much he was paid forrepresenting a Barra and we gofrom Idaho Courts to theSupreme Court of the UnitedStates.

Kevin We're just thismorning a major ruling has comeout in education and it couldhave serious implications forfunding for education in Idaho.When it comes to the idea ofschool vouchers or funding forreligious schools, so this is astory that actually startedback in Montana.

Can you bringus up to speed on where thiscase from the Supreme Courtcame from and what the rulingwas today?

Okay so the upshotin Montana and a lot of this isgonna sound familiar to folkswho watch education issuesMontana established ascholarship program that wouldallow people to receive a taxcredit if they contributed toprograms to providescholarships for.

Schools.

Theissue became complicated whenit's centered on the questionof whether the scholarshipscould be used to attend areligious school that was thecrux of the case that wentbefore the Supreme Court andthe Supreme Court ruled todaythat a scholarship program likethe one in Montana has to bemade available to studentsattending all private schools,including religious schools.Why do we care about this inIdaho when this is a Montanacase?

Well the?

In Montana'sConstitution and the languagein.

Constitutions in aboutthree dozen States, includingIdaho prohibit the use ofpublic dollars to supportreligious entities, includingschools, they're called BlaineAmendments and like I saywidespread across the nation.by the most recent accountsI've seen about three dozenStates have amendments on thebooks and what we've seen inIdaho over the past few yearsis that the Blaine Amendment isa.

It's strongly worded and itis restricted attempts to tryto set up any kind of vouchersystem it would you would haveto essentially amend thestate's constitution to.legalize any kind of a vouchersystem, and I mean the state'sconstitution is a complicatedand daunting hurdles.

So thisruling and it was a five tofour ruling sharply dividedSupreme Court it place.

A lotof places the high Court'sattention on these amendmentsin a way that we haven't seenin the past how that plays outin the 2021 legislative sessionand beyond that remains to beseen but this this could.

Thiscould encourage folks who havebeen wanting to take a run atthe amendment to take anothertake another shot at trying toto tweak Idaho's version of theamendment.

Actually just cameout, we're looking at theruling right there to Justice,maybe A- two pages' way throughand and try to get more of thenuances of it, but you know theCros of it is if you have ascholarship program like inMontana, it''s you cannotdifferentiate between youSecular private schools andprivate schools.

Again, justone more thing to put on ourplate for the question.

2021.Kevin We've got a bunch ofcomments from people.

Weappreciate you being here formaking the great everybodytalking a lot about what theirschools can reopen how they'regonna reopen how thosedecisions are gonna be madesafely so Kevin before wefinish up making the grade,let's let's scoot back aroundon that same topic specificallywhat have you seen and heardwith the school reopeningCommittee?

There's been somecomments and questions hereabout whether or not they'regetting.

From doctors orpediatricians and the groupthat's making up this reopeningschool Committee, which isagain has non-bindingguidelines that are gonna becoming out later this week ornext week.

Our our peoplelooking at the science here aswell, I think they have to belooking at the science and forall these leads an emergingscience and you would imaginethat a school officialscontemplate the issues thatthey're facing even though the.Districts don't have to sign onto a school's reopening planYou would think that you knowcommon sense would dictate thatthe school districts the schooladministrators and the trusteeswould reach out to folks in thehealth community reach out tothe health districts healthdistrict boards, which arecomprised not only of electedofficials, but also of ofmedical professionals.

Wellonce again, we're gonna have alot to talk about next week wekeep waiting for the summerslowdown and no-I was you knowtexting my.

Cally Claire CorbinWe cover the Legislaturetogether and we're looking atwhat are they look like?

It'slike it feels like alegislative day only in lateJune because you know there areseveral stories that we'relooking at and several storiesthat could break you know thisis supposed to be fourth ofJuly week too.

It's it's notslowing down No not at all.Alright.

Do you have some socksto show us?

I do you do so andmasks we could we could goeither direction.

Yes.

I've cutyour mask and you always onyour mask.

Yes good.

Can weleave home?

And as for so, soyou know, obviously it's fourthof July week, but it's alsocome Friday The hundred andthirtieth anniversary Idaho's100 and thirtieth birthday soI'm gonna show you that thesesocks.

We go all the way down.here is the oh I love them.

Sohappy hundred and thirtiethbirthday Idaho That is onFriday I love it.

Kevin Thankyo