Nearly 10% of the students in the Fort Dodge Community School District will be learning at home this fall with a virtual instruction option offered to families.

Districtwide, there will be 179 high school students, 179 middle school students and 176 elementary school students doing virtual-only instruction for the first part of the school year. For elementary school and middle school, students are committed to the virtual learning for the first semester. At the high school level, the commitment is for the first trimester.

The FDCSD recently held a series of virtual family forums for families to share their questions and concerns with the district about the upcoming school year amid COVID-19. Superintendent Jesse Ulrich said the district had “a lot of positive feedback” from the forums.

“A lot of great questions were asked, a lot of great answers were given,” he said.

Ulrich said district staff and families should continue to expect changes as the COVID-19 situation in Webster County evolves.

The board also approved purchases for curriculum licenses for the TK-5 students who will be enrolled in the virtual-only learning this semester.

“This is a comprehensive curriculum that includes reading, math, science, social studies, health, art, PE, music and technology,” said Steph Anderson, director of elementary education for the district. “So it can stand alone. Students work on that all by themselves without teacher interaction, but we’re providing the teacher interaction piece as well.”

The $48,000 online curriculum licenses will be funded out of the district’s general fund. This curriculum will be used for the students whose parents or guardians chose to have the student participate in virtual-only instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We already have site licenses for six through 12, so that won’t be an additional cost to the district,” Ulrich said.

The school board also approved a $18,480 purchase of asynchronous learning curriculum for TK-5 students who will be doing classroom instruction this year, for use in the event of a classroom, grade, building or the entire district having to go virtual-only at any point in the semester.

The learning opportunities would cover English language arts, math, science and social studies.

“This would be for the time that they are home and it will provide an online option to be able to … work at their pace and their level in each of those areas at home,” Anderson said. “On the other side of that, teachers would do synchronous lessons, where they would continue teaching what they were in the classrooms.”

The funding for this curriculum will come out of the district’s curriculum budget.

In other business, the school board approved a proposal to spend $35,095.12 on HDTV displays, programming and installation at the new Central Office facility on North 25th Street. The proposal includes 16 75-inch displays, two 65-inch displays, 18 display mounts, 18 HDMI cables and the installation and programming of all the displays. The district is using Reference Audio Video and Security, which has locations in Urbandale, Coralville and Davenport.

The board also approved the seventh change order for the new Central Office and Maintenance Facility project at 109 N. 25th St.

This change order, totaling $22,938.88, covers the roof deck replacement, an extension of a guardrail, monument sign design changes and the addition to a 220-volt circuit for the print shop.

So far, the $2,594,700 project has added $335,039.13 in change orders.