Senate File 160 requires that all brick-and-mortar school districts and accredited nonpublic schools in Iowa offer a 100% in-person learning option to all of their students and families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This would mean that if a district chose to transition to a hybrid model to limit the number of students in the buildings because of increased COVID-19 activity, like the Fort Dodge Community School District did for the last six weeks of 2020, the district would also have to offer a full-time in-person option for any student in the district. The same requirement applies to situations where a district decides to go fully online.

The bill goes into effect on Feb. 15 and ends June 30.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the Legislature feels that they need to make decisions in Des Moines that affect schools outside of Des Moines,” said FDCSD Superintendent Jesse Ulrich. “We certainly believe in local control and local decision-making because we already have locally-elected officials who serve on a school board to help make some of these decisions.”

FDCSD Board of Education President Stu Cochrane had a similar reaction to the bill’s passing.

“We never really like legislation that doesn’t provide for local control — we’ve always been of the philosophy and belief that education in Iowa succeeds as long as it has because of local control,” he said. “Local communities and school districts and boards are in the best position to make the decisions that are good for their communities, students and families.”

For the most part, at this point the new legislation will not have much effect on Fort Dodge schools, Ulrich said.

“We have said since the beginning that we want to maintain 100% face-to-face instruction for our students as long as that is safe for our students and our staff,” he said. “We know that there is no substitution for direct instruction from a teacher and we know that online education is not as effective as if students were in class with a teacher.”

The only thing he sees changing are the data metrics the district uses to determine the need to go hybrid or virtual.

“My understanding of the bill is the Department of Education will provide further guidance on metrics for us to utilize in case we need to apply for a waiver, if there is another spike or we can’t staff our buildings because of the virus,” Ulrich said.

Ulrich said he feels the bill is a reactionary one targeting “one very large school district in Iowa that wasn’t following the same rules as the rest of us” and now the state has new legislation and two weeks to understand it before it goes into effect.

Des Moines Public Schools has offered only hybrid or all-virtual learning options this school year, with no 100% face-to-face option.

Both Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, and Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge, voted in favor of the bill this week before it went before the governor.

“It’s unfortunate that the Legislature thought that this needed to happen statewide, but what i will also say is Sen. Kraayenbrink and Rep. Meyer have been 100% supportive of what we have been doing here in Fort Dodge and been supportive of making sure that we keep our staff safe, which I appreciate as we continue to move forward,” Ulrich said.

During Friday’s Eggs and Issues forum, Kraayenbrink said that if parents want their children to be in a 100 percent in-person learning environment they should have the right to put the children into that type of schooling.

”No one ever knows better about their child than the parents,” he said.

Kraayenbrink said entirely remote classes have resulted in a decline in learning and can impact the mental health of students.

He said the law will not have much impact in the Fort Dodge area.