Many school districts in the region are proposing a hybrid of in-person and remote learning for the fall, but the Bellevue School District also is exploring something that sounds like a flashback to the pre-pandemic days: 100 percent in-person instruction.

Under this model, Bellevue students in kindergarten through 12th grade could opt for attending school in person five days a week.

This show originally aired on October 19, 2019.

This story originally aired on October 19, 2019. 

The Vietnam War officially ended in 1973, but people continued to flee the country well into the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands of people escaped the country on boats. Thousands died at sea. It was an international humanitarian crisis. The men, women and children fleeing were called boat people.

This story originally aired on October 19, 2019.

Grace Jo was 6 years old when her mom scooped up her and her older sister, and set out to cross the Tumen River into China. 

“We walked three nights and four days,” Jo said, recalling the trek along rocky mountain trails. “A lot of tree branches were hurting our skin. A lot of wild animal sounds we could hear at night, and we had to hide from people.”

At the river’s edge, the water level went up to her mother’s hips. 

“My mom managed, and all three of us able to cross river and come to China.” 

But escaping North Korea and finding freedom are two different things. Five years later, Jo and her family were captured, and deported back to North Korea. 

  The fact that she’s alive, not imprisoned or executed, is kind of miraculous. She — and hundreds of other North Korean refugees — owe their lives to a Seattle-area man named John Yoon. 

This story originally aired on October 19, 2019.

In the fall of 1989, in Vancouver, Washington, a short, 29-year-old man named Westley Allan Dodd raped and murdered three young boys. The boys were brothers Cole and William Neer, ages 10 and 11, and 4-year-old Lee Iseli.

A few weeks later, police arrested Westley at a movie theater after he tried and failed to abduct another boy. He quickly confessed to the three murders. The prosecution sought the death penalty, and Dodd pled guilty.

People in the Pacific Northwest sometimes jokingly call the sixth month here "Juneuary," because of the persistently gloomy weather we often face in June. Now an abundance of offshore flow — marine air coming in off the cool Pacific Ocean — has KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass calling July "Julember."

With more than 140 cases of COVID-19 confirmed among students on the University of Washington's Greek Row, there are a lot of questions about how this will affect school and sports. More from KNKX sports commentator Art Thiel and Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick.

School districts in Washington state are trying to figure out how to safely bring students back to school for at least some in-person instruction in the fall, given the risks of the coronavirus pandemic and public health requirements.

At the same time, they face pressure all the way from the White House. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from districts that do not bring all students back for full-time, in-person instruction.