Mt. Pleasant schools looking to suspend return-to-learn

MT. PLEASANT — With school registration just around the corner on Aug. 3, the Mt. Pleasant Community School District is preparing plans for students to return in the fall.

According to Superintendent John Henricksen, Mt. Pleasant schools are looking to get back to normal for as long as possible by suspending the return-to-learn plan adopted before the last school year.

"We plan to open in a pretty normal fashion, we will still do some enhanced hand washing and sanitizing, but other than that unless something changes we plan to open in a normal fashion,“ Henricksen said.

Although Henricksen explained that the return-to-learn would be already in place and ready to readopt if Henry County Public Health or the Iowa Department of Public Health advise schools to reinstate COVID-19 mitigation protocols.

Even with the return-to-learn suspended, the school district will continue increased sanitation protocols in the school buildings and bus routes.

The district is intending to drop the remote learning option that was offered to students last year. Henricksen explained that the program was not successful and led to frustration and difficulty for students.

“It is not our intention to offer remote learning as an option this year,” Henricksen said. “There are other options rather than a remote learning, if families want that.”

Students can enroll in the home-school program or open enroll to the Iowa Connections Academy if they wish to pursue online learning, according to Henricksen.

“We didn’t think it was a great success for a lot of our kids, and that’s why we moved away from supporting it ourselves. It was just difficult for our kids and for the most part they learn better in a face-to-face manner with our teachers,” Henricksen said.

The Mt. Pleasant Community School District is currently registering students for the 2021-2022 school year.

Please see the district website: www.mtpcsd.org for details about online registration and the walk-in day for registration scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 3.

The district encourages families to take advantage of the online registration process.