School districts across Iowa are deciding how they will teach students while schools remain closed due to coronavirus concerns.  Sigourney Schools Superintendent Dave Harper says his district is using the enrichment option Governor Reynolds suggested last week.

“Our teachers have been working their tails off providing materials, whether it’s been workbooks or apps through Google Classroom. The workforce is enough that we have enough computers for our K-12 kids.  Teachers are touching base with their students, providing reinforcement activities, small activities that they can provide the kids.”

Harper went on to say that he’s aware of the difficulties for parents who have been put into the position of home-schooling their kids.

“These parents aren’t home schooling, they’re crisis schooling.  And their lives are going on and they do not know whether they have a job or not and their lives are very stressful right now.  So we want to be in tune to try to provide opportunities for their kids to continue thinking about school.  But we understand life gets in the way right now and we’re experiencing that with a lot of our families.”

Other options that Iowa school districts have are to take required classes that count toward credit, or to not provide continuous learning at all.  Governor Reynolds says districts that do nothing will have to make up the lost school days once the COVID-19 pandemic is over.