COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Due to a high rate of staff absences from COVID-19 and other illnesses, Woodland Middle School is temporarily moving to remote learning, as reported by our news partner the Coeur d'Alene Press.
The switch begins Friday, Jan. 21 and continues through Monday, with a reevaluation of the situation to decide the plans for the continued delivery of instruction format.
“We are prepared to continue with remote learning after Monday if our staffing challenges persist,” Principal Mike Lindquist and Assistant Principal Michelle Johnson said in a joint email to parents today.
The school administrators said the school is continuously evaluating the situation and will announce on Monday if they need to continue in a remote learning format.
The school had 19 staff members absent on Thursday with only three substitutes filling in due to the district-wide shortage of substitute teachers. Across the district, there were 110 absences in instructional staff today.
“This makes it extremely difficult to continue in-person instruction and provide adequate student supervision throughout the school day,” the school administrators said in an email.
The Coeur d’Alene School District announced last Friday the possibility of temporary closures of school buildings due to staff absences from COVID-19 and other illnesses.
“Our teachers and staff have done an amazing job of covering for their colleagues, and we have additional help today from District Office staff,” the school administrators said. “We are getting by, but we expect this situation will not improve in the next few days.”
As of Jan. 20, there are 34,297 COVID cases in Kootenai County according to the Panhandle Health District.
The Coeur d'Alene Press is a KREM 2 news partner. For more from our news partner, click here.