Last Whatcom public school announces plans for the start of school year amid COVID-19
UPDATE: Information about Lynden School District was added Aug. 11, 2020.
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All K-12 public and tribal schools in Whatcom County will start the school year online over concerns about safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The school board for the Lynden School District decided Monday night, Aug. 10, to begin the 2020-21 school year with remote learning, saying that it too will follow Whatcom County Health Department guidelines.
“This is certainly a unique time. Something that we have never experienced before and so do not have a playbook to refer to for answers and direction,” Superintendent Jim Frey and school board President Steve Jilk said in an online message to families and staff on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, there are no right answers here, only best choices based on current information without certainty of future conditions.”
Lynden school officials said the decision was “extremely difficult” and acknowledged that some will be disappointed.
“Starting with in-person learning would likely result in shutdowns and quarantines that would be more disruptive to consistency and continuity of learning,” officials said, adding that the district was told it could lose coverage from its insurance carrier, the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool, if it didn’t follow local health department guidelines.
“This a huge factor and brings with it both legal and financial liability issues for the district,” Lynden officials said.
The Whatcom County Health officer last week recommended remote learning, saying it was unsafe to bring students back into the classroom because positive cases of the new coronavirus as well as community spread continue to grow. Gov. Jay Inslee also strongly recommended distance learning for schools in high-risk counties, although he didn’t mandate it.
Whatcom County is in the moderate-risk category, meaning 25 to 75 cases per 100,000 people.
Here are the most recent announcements from other Whatcom school districts:
▪ Blaine School District, decided on Saturday, Aug. 8, to start the school year teaching students remotely.
“The decision to begin the year remotely is not one we enter into without understanding the impact,” Superintendent Christopher Granger said in a message to parents. “We recognize that face-to-face is the best means to deliver instruction for all students, but we also know we have to be able to do that safely to protect our students, staff and community as a whole.”
Granger said the school district plans to bring small groups of students who need specialized instruction and services into school buildings “when it becomes possible.”
▪ Nooksack Valley School District will start the school year with remote instruction, Superintendent Mark Johnson has announced. It also will bump the start date to Sept. 8.
“This will allow us to ‘go slow to go fast,’ bringing back students and staff in thoughtful and doable stages, while practicing our new health and safety protocols and procedures,” Johnson wrote in a message on Friday, Aug. 7. “Starting fast and risking more shutdowns and quarantines would likely be more disruptive.”
Johnson also said that the district’s risk pool insurance “has clearly told us to follow the local health department guidelines or risk loss of coverage. This is a huge factor.”
Here are the school districts that have previously announced their plans.
▪ Bellingham Public Schools will start the school year remotely and has moved the start date to Sept. 8.
▪ Ferndale School District will start the school year with remote learning.
▪ Lummi Nation School said its students will be taught online for the first half of the school, from Sept. 1 through Jan. 4.
▪ Meridian School District will start the school year with remote learning.
▪ Mount Baker School District will begin the school year with online instruction and will look at bringing small groups of children who need specialized instruction to campus.
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 12:25 PM.
