MAGIC VALLEY — With most schools returning to in-person learning, the Twin Falls School District is implementing certain measures to ensure the COVID-19 cases do not rise.
“Here in the Twin Falls School District, we are recommending that students and staff members wear face coverings when they are in situations where social distancing isn’t possible," Eva Craner with the Twin Falls School District said.
But the district is not requiring masks and will leave that decision up to parents.
“But we are encouraging folks to think about that decision, especially since we are seeing higher numbers of unvaccinated folks coming down with covid," Craner said.
The school district is also not requiring kids who are eligible for the vaccine to be vaccinated.
“We will not be requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for our students in the Twin Falls School District. That's not really our place to do that, it's more of a legislative and health and welfare area ," Craner said.
But certain teachers are implementing things in their classroom to ensure their student's safety.
“Over the past year, our teachers have gotten good at figuring out how to optimize space in their classroom, and so three feet is the gold standard, and so lots of teachers are trying to figure out ways to space their students the best they can," Craner said.
The school district sent out its reopening plan to parents, which included CDC recommendations and other measures the school is taking as safety precautions.
“We have hand sanitizer throughout the school system. We’re recommending respiratory hygiene, things like coughing into your elbow, washing your hand frequently, things like that. And we’ve upgraded filtration systems in a lot of our buildings over the summer as well. So that there are more hospital-grade filtration systems,” Craner said.
The school district says it's going to need parent's help in order to prevent another surge in cases that could impact school operations.
“We are relying on parents this year to make those informed decisions. We need them to be good partners in keeping our schools healthy. If we have students that come into our system who are sick and spread it to others, that’s going to cause difficulty with us keeping our doors open and keeping those classrooms functioning as normal," Craner said.
