Coeur d'Alene schools move to 'yellow'

The Coeur d'Alene School Board voted to change the risk classification of its district from "orange" to "yellow" during an early morning meeting Friday.

The unanimous vote came following a special meeting earlier this week when board members were conflicted about even making a motion to vote on the change.

"Yellow" will be implemented starting Oct. 5 to give the district time to prepare. "Yellow" means minimal risk — kids will be back in school in person five days a week with practical social distancing in place. Masks will still be required.

Superintendent Steve Cook said he can't emphasize enough how important it is for students to stay home if they're not feeling well.

"Our challenge now is to try to keep our schools open, and that takes a partnership with our families to do so," he said.

During the meeting, the board unanimously moved to adopt COVID metrics put forth by Panhandle Health that will guide the district's decisions for when to change risk level. Coeur d'Alene had built its own metric system before PHD created its system, but the two have become so similar it was causing confusion. The board found it best to use the same metrics. The details can be found at www.panhandlehealthdistrict.org under the "COVID-19 Regional Gating Plan."

"I realize as board chair, I failed to anticipate a couple things: One, the lack of knowledge within the community that the district had assembled its own criteria for evaluating our COVID threat level, and two, the potential that, depending how an individual analyzed the district's criteria charts, they could see a threat level that did not align to Panhandle's assessment," Chairman Casey Morrisroe said.

He also made a surprise announcement that school board sessions will no longer be streamed on Facebook because of caustic comments posted by viewers.

He began by apologizing to his fellow trustees.

"I apologize that my failure to anticipate put us at odds on Monday, and in turn, that led to intense scrutiny of you and the district," he said to them. "Unfortunately, some of that scrutiny turned nasty and personal, and it fell well below the character of a community as great as Coeur d'Alene."

He apologized for any hurt or pain the trustees or their families suffered.

"Clearly, you are upstanding citizens, elected officials that care deeply about our community and I am humbled to serve with you," he said. "Thank you for what you do, and thanks for doing it with me."

He said as elected officials, they welcome feedback and will take the good with the bad, but the thread of Facebook comments "got out of hand on Monday."

"I cannot support the use of the district's Facebook page for staff, citizens and students to squabble and attack one another," he said. "Going forward, board meetings will be live-streamed through the district's YouTube channel only."

To streamline the process of submitting comments to board members, a new email has been created: trustees@cdaschools.org