Lang/AP
8/29/20
The Iowa City Community School District will start the 2020-21 school year with online-only instruction.
That’s after the Iowa City school board voted Saturday morning to conduct all classes virtually for the first two weeks. Classes in the district begin on Sept. 8.
The state requires that all extracurricular activities, including sports, be suspended during those two weeks.
The move comes after the state granted the district a waiver earlier in the week allowing for the virtual instruction. The 14-day average COVID-19 positivity rate in Johnson County was 13.9% on Wednesday, but had risen to 21.1% by Saturday. The threshold Gov. Kim Reynolds has established for schools to seek online learning instead of required classroom lessons is 15%.
The district says it will provide more details, including on the distribution of school lunches, on Monday.