Schools throughout eastern Iowa face virus staffing challenges

Schools across eastern Iowa are debating increasing online learning as students and staff in growing numbers are absent due to COVID-19 quarantines.

At Prairie Creek Intermediate School in the College Community School District, the situation has 'reached a critical point in our ability to adjust staffing challenges while adhering to mitigation strategies,” Superintendent Doug Wheeler said in a letter sent to families this week.

While the district has staffing challenges at other buildings, Prairie Creek is at a 'critical juncture.”

Prairie Creek Intermediate School is transitioning from an in-person to a hybrid learning model to deal with staffing shortages caused by the coronavirus.

The district is struggling to find substitute teachers to fill in for teachers out on quarantine or home sick with the coronavirus.

On Monday, Prairie Creek students will move to a hybrid learning model, attending school in-person every other day and online on the days they are not on campus. The district does not expect to extend hybrid learning beyond Nov. 30.

The College Community district started all students in the hybrid learning model for the first few weeks of school and moved elementary and middle school students to in-person learning soon after.

While there were plans to move the high school from the hybrid model to fully in-person, the district never implemented it because of rising cases of COVID-19 in the county.

Last week, the district added 12 positive student and staff cases with 79 overall in quarantine.

Like College Community, other Eastern Iowa school districts are seeing a sudden rise in students and staff in quarantine.

The Iowa City Community School District had seven classrooms in quarantine as of Thursday afternoon.

Iowa schools have the option of moving to online-only learning if the county has a 14-day positivity rate of 15 to 20 percent and 10 percent absenteeism among students in in-person learning. The request to move online must be approved by the Iowa Department of Public Health and Iowa Department of Education.

In the Cedar Rapids Community School District, 31 staff members are in quarantine across 32 buildings, and 11 have tested positive for COVID-19.

Only nine students, however, are in quarantine and less than five are positive for the coronavirus. The district is following guidance from Gov. Kim Reynolds, which does not require people who have come in contact with a positive case to quarantine if masks were worn correctly.

Director of Communications for Cedar Rapids schools Colleen Scholer said staff quarantines are not necessarily associated with school close contacts.

The quarantines could have been identified through Linn County Public Health's contact tracing process, Scholer said in an email.

Staff in quarantine have the option of working remotely when possible, she said.

Although Linn County's 14-day positivity rate is 17.6 percent, Cedar Rapids schools do not meet the metrics to go online because they do not have 10 percent absentee rates.