Testimony: ‘My children will fall thru cracks’

Lynnette Aldridge of Oldtown, a mother of four including a child with developmental delays, said, “Providing all our students with online learning sounds great on paper, but my children will fall through the cracks - they will not succeed.” Her high-school-age daughter tried online classes and failed, she said, but thrived back in regular school with support from her teachers.

Betty Gardner, a small business owner from Priest River who also subsitute teaches and has a daughter who is a teacher, said, “We already have 25-plus kids in most of our classrooms. … I have questions especially about the virtual classes. If students don’t have Internet and have to stay after school to do homework, who’s going to supervise them?” She said, “I don’t think public education is an entitlement, I think it’s a duty.”

Theresa Watson, a fourth-grade teacher from Priest River, said, “We need money and funding for our schools.” Teachers in her district received no money for supplies this year, she said, and had to buy them on their own. “It’s my responsibility to provide a safe, nurturing, encouraging classroom - not to fund it,” she said.