Do West Ada schools report all COVID cases? Teachers union wants more transparency

The West Ada Education Association is calling for more transparency in the district’s reporting of COVID-19 cases.

In a statement released Friday, the teachers union said it supports mitigation strategies to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But there needs to be an “accurate understanding of the risk at any given time” to make individual decisions on whether to take those precautions, the association said.

The West Ada COVID-19 dashboard, which tracks cases reported among students and staff in each school, is one of the tools people have in determining their individual risk in schools. The dashboard on Friday afternoon reported 162 total active COVID-19 cases across the district over the past five days. Last week, from Jan. 9 to 15, the district reported more than 900 cases.

Teachers and parents have raised concerns that the district’s dashboard doesn’t reflect all the cases they are seeing in their classrooms, the number of exposure notifications they are receiving or the high numbers of absences being reported among students and staff.

“Like the CDH, the school district has been given an impossible/unprecedented task of tracking a complex and inconsistently reported disease without the appropriate tools or training, resulting in a distorted picture,” the association said.

“Therefore, we call upon the CDH, West Ada Administration, and Board of Trustees to reconsider how they collect and report information for full transparency and an accurate representation of the risks involved in continuing in-person education at a heightened point in this global pandemic,” the statement continued.

The district on its dashboard said it records positive cases that reflect students and staff who were infectious while attending in-person school. West Ada spokesperson Char Jackson said the district relies on parents to inform them of positive cases. Then, nurses input those cases into a software that is sent to the dashboard, she said. It’s unclear how the district determines who was infectious while in school.

Association wants more transparency to help decide on mitigation strategies

The association said it supports using multi-layered mitigation measures to slow the spread of the virus in schools. Those mitigation strategies could include measures such as universal masking, vaccinations, hand washing, testing, distancing and ventilation.

“The members of the West Ada Education Association believe that in-person learning is extremely important for our students,” the statement said. “We know that the safe environment offered by public schools is the best place for many students to learn.”

The push comes as cases have been surging across Idaho, forcing several schools in the Treasure Valley to close temporarily because of high numbers of teachers and staff members out sick, and not enough substitutes to cover for them.

The Caldwell School District, several schools in the Nampa School District and at least two schools in Boise have all had temporary closures.

West Ada district offers incentives for extra shifts

Now, the West Ada School District is also offering extra incentives to encourage teachers to cover for others during breaks, or to urge substitute teachers to work more often.

“Our collective efforts will make this school year successful for each other and for our students,” Superintendent Derek Bub said in a Jan. 19 email obtained by the Statesman. “Given the current staff shortages experienced due to COVID, we will find strength by pulling together, embracing the old adage, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’”

Under the district’s new plan, which runs from Jan. 3 to Feb. 25, contracted certified staff that help with classroom coverage or other duties during their designated prep time will receive $50 per hour. Classified staff who work extra hours will be paid twice their hourly rate for the time they worked outside of their standard hours.

Substitutes are also rewarded for working four or five days per week. Substitutes who work four days per week receive 1.5 times their daily rate of pay, and those working five days a week receive two times their daily pay rate.

Becca Savransky covers education for the Idaho Statesman in partnership with Report for America. The position is partly funded through community support. Click here to donate.