NAMPA, Idaho — In a little more than a month, the College of Western Idaho will kick off the 2020-21 school year. All summer there has been questions about what education will look like. CWI says they have a comprehensive plan.
“We are very busy as we have been, we’ve not stopped since this began in March,” said Denise Aberle-Cannata, Provost at CWI. “We are going back face to face and we’ve also increased the number of online course and hybrid that our students can pick from. We realize that there are individuals who may be uncomfortable coming back to campus.”
Aberle-Cannata says back in the spring, CWI was aggressive with health and safety measures so students could finish out the year. Since the spring, CWI has expanded on those measures.
“We didn’t put in the minimum standards; we went to the extreme right from the beginning and our plan has never been to reverse course and reduce those standards,” said Aberle-Cannata.
CWI will host a smaller number of students in classrooms and require social distancing. Hand-sanitizing stations are now outside each classroom and students are asked to sanitize on the way in and out.
Beyond that, CWI is also looking at more complex ideas to promote a healthy environment.
“We’ve gone to the point of looking at our airflow and how we can increase the amount of outside air coming into the facilities and into the classrooms in areas where we don’t have overhead doors or windows that open,” said Aberle-Cannata.
Oh yeah, don’t forgot about masks.
“Students will be required, as will faculty and staff, to wear a face covering,” said Aberle-Cannata.
How do students feel about returning in-person?
Ashton Syed studies engineering at CWI. He says as a student it is very encouraging to see the school embrace so many protocols.
"I'm planning on taking calculus 2, so it's pretty difficult to do not face to face,” said Syed. “They want to try and accommodate in-person classes.”
School administrators know however that things can change fast.
“We are continually watching the data. We’ve noticed the spike so we continue to look and refine and be ready to adjust as necessary, “said Aberle-Cannata.
If a student or faculty member gets COVID, CWI is confident in their procedure to deal with it. Instances like that will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“We’ve already got a process in place for managing that and then the determination is made based off of the actual criteria that followed that individual,” said Aberle-Cannata.
Faculty were also asked early on to prepare for the unknown.
“Create scenarios like, what if we do have to have a virus ready course if something has to be moved online, but to ensure that we have individuals that can step in and teach these courses in the event that something like that could happen to a faculty member,” said Aberle-Cannata.
Syed says he knows going to in-person classes could expose him to COVID, but that the protocols and communication from CWI are great. His takeaway from the communication and guidelines form CWI, student safety is front and center.
“I’m not too concerned. I think they are taking a lot of great steps to protect everybody,” said Syed.
Join 'The 208' conversation:
- Text us at (208) 321-5614
- E-mail us at the208@ktvb.com
- Join our The 208 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/the208KTVB/
- Follow us on Twitter: @the208KTVB or tweet #the208 and #SoIdaho
- Follow us on Instagram: @the208KTVB
- Bookmark our landing page: /the-208
- And we also turn each episode into a podcast on Spotify or Podbeam
- Still reading this list? We're on YouTube, too: