COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho – The Coeur d’Alene school board voted unanimously Monday evening to change the 2024/2025 schedule and re-zone elementary students, following the this fall.
Students will now arrive one hour early on Monday’s and leave two hours early on Friday’s beginning in the 2024/2025 school year.
Ali Koski, a parent of three students in the Coeur d’Alene School District (CDASD) is concerned managing work and her kids with this new schedule.
“It’s a never-ending juggle. I think it’s been ever-evolving since my 17-year-old was a kid,” Koski said. “I’m trying to jump ahead and figure out if we’re doing a parenting co-op next year, if we’re going to have to find every other Friday childcare, if I’m just only gonna work four days a week and work remotely on Friday’s. It’s the worst day of the week to not be in the office, so I really have no idea how to respond yet.”
The CDASD is actually over on instructional hours. Elementary schools are over by 37 hours. 70 to 90 hours at the middle schools, and 31 to 50 hours at the high schools.
Coeur d’Alene School Trustee Heather Tenbrink said Monday the new schedule may work better for students who participate in extracurricular activities.
“I like the Friday early out because my secondary students who are involved in activities do often miss Friday afternoons riding on buses places. So as a parent, I like less makeup work for my kids to try and track down,” Tenbrink said.
A separate issue the district took up Monday night was the re-zoning of elementary students. Borah Elementary is set to close by the end of this year.
This is what the current zoning look like:
This is what it’ll look like next school year:
“It sucks because he’s been here since kindergarten. This is where he started school and most of his classmates have been in kindergarten with him throughout all the grades. It’s going to be hard to start all over again,” Sara Queener, a Borah Elementary parent said.
After the re-zoning anywhere from four to 144 students will be transferred to the other elementary schools. Here’s a breakdown:
The school district says one of the schools will be around 90 percent capacity but it’ll depend on what happens with enrollment in the years ahead.
“It’s good long-term planning that the committee has done as they’ve put these boundaries together,” Superintendent Dr. Shon Hocker said.
to house the Coeur d’Alene Early Learning Center.
