A Rural School Under Pressure To Stay Open: 'People Are Just Rough And Tough'
Despite alarming rises in COVID-19 cases and deaths in rural America, some schools are under pressure to stay open for in-person learning while resisting requiring masks and other measures.
It can feel like a parallel universe when you go from a city where kids are cooped up inside at home doing school virtually on their tablets, to an isolated small town like Bruneau, Idaho.
One afternoon this week, the bell had just rung and kids were emptying out of the small elementary school and into the snowy parking lot, almost as if it's 2019 and there is no pandemic.
No one appears to be wearing a mask, which is just fine with parents like Cassandra Folkman.
"I don't make them wear 'em anywhere we go," Folkman says. "I don't wear one and they don't."
She's sitting in her idling pickup
