The Iowa Department of Education has denied the Iowa City Community School District's request to start the school year with online-only instruction after it submitted its request Tuesday.
"While this is not the outcome that we were hoping for, we have been preparing for this possibility," the district's interim superintendent, Matt Degner, wrote in an email to families Thursday.
The school board will discuss the district's next steps at its next meeting Tuesday night.
At this week's special meeting, board members voted unanimously to delay the start of the school year from Aug. 24 to Sept. 8. Instructional time will be made up in June, when district officials hope in-person instruction will have resumed.
Because the board was waiting to hear the state's response regarding starting the year online, it has not yet decided a Return-to-Learn plan.
Johnson County has lost as many to COVID-19 in 3 weeks as it lost in the pandemic's first two months in Iowa Track COVID-19 cases in Iowa See which Iowa businesses received PPP loans Coronavirus: Comparing the infection curve
To be in accordance with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' mandate that students have a minimum of 50% of their instruction in-person, the Iowa City school district has created a plan that includes remote and in-person instruction.
Students would be separated into two groups. Fifty percent of students would go to school on "A" days and the other half would go to school on "B" days. Students in the A group would go to school on Mondays and Tuesdays while students in the B group would go to school on Thursdays and Fridays; each group would alternate going to school on Wednesdays.
District officials have said they will work with families to coordinate that siblings be in the same group and are trying to give parents as much flexibility as they can.
If the district's request for online-only instruction had been approved, the state would have granted the school district a two-week waiver from its mandate for 50% in-person instruction. After the two weeks, district officials would have had to apply again to continue only teaching online.
https://www.press-citizen.com/story...enies-city-request-go-online-only/3311933001/
"While this is not the outcome that we were hoping for, we have been preparing for this possibility," the district's interim superintendent, Matt Degner, wrote in an email to families Thursday.
The school board will discuss the district's next steps at its next meeting Tuesday night.
At this week's special meeting, board members voted unanimously to delay the start of the school year from Aug. 24 to Sept. 8. Instructional time will be made up in June, when district officials hope in-person instruction will have resumed.
Because the board was waiting to hear the state's response regarding starting the year online, it has not yet decided a Return-to-Learn plan.
Johnson County has lost as many to COVID-19 in 3 weeks as it lost in the pandemic's first two months in Iowa Track COVID-19 cases in Iowa See which Iowa businesses received PPP loans Coronavirus: Comparing the infection curve
To be in accordance with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' mandate that students have a minimum of 50% of their instruction in-person, the Iowa City school district has created a plan that includes remote and in-person instruction.
Students would be separated into two groups. Fifty percent of students would go to school on "A" days and the other half would go to school on "B" days. Students in the A group would go to school on Mondays and Tuesdays while students in the B group would go to school on Thursdays and Fridays; each group would alternate going to school on Wednesdays.
District officials have said they will work with families to coordinate that siblings be in the same group and are trying to give parents as much flexibility as they can.
If the district's request for online-only instruction had been approved, the state would have granted the school district a two-week waiver from its mandate for 50% in-person instruction. After the two weeks, district officials would have had to apply again to continue only teaching online.
https://www.press-citizen.com/story...enies-city-request-go-online-only/3311933001/