NAMPA, Idaho — Children in the Nampa School District won't be returning to their classrooms after spring break is over.
Instead, they will be home, learning on electronic devices. The school district is going fully online after break ends in order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The district has been providing devices to their students for years. Middle schoolers and high schoolers got laptop computers, while elementary kids got an iPad.
“We've been set up for this for a long time,” Nampa School District spokesperson Kathleen Tuck said.
Because voters have approved levies in recent years, they're set up to go fully online. The levies provided the funding necessary to get each of the 14,000 students their own device.
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“We've had a lot of support for a lot of years from our community,” Tuck said. “That’s really what made this possible.”
Starting March 31, students will get all their lessons and assignments on their devices.
“Basically, the teachers will be providing instruction for them,” Tuck said. "They will have the opportunity to do that and the assignments will come in and they will be graded.”
Students will get to do the assignments on their own time. Tuck told KTVB that the district understands families have their own lives to worry about at this time, and internet access is a challenge for some families.
“What we've done is basically turn all of our schools -- we have 24 schools -- each one of those sites is a hot spot in essence, so we boosted the signal,” she said.
Each school can manage about 50 users at one time. This provides options for families without internet.
“So, it's not perfect, Tuck said. “We still will have some people that for one reason or another can't access the internet and we're trying to work with them individually.”
The district is planning to teach online the entire first week back from spring break. After that week, they will re-evaluate. They'll see if they can re-open their schools or if they need to continue teaching online.