Recommendation to move the school start date back to Monday, August 24th.
On Thursday, July 30, Governor Reynolds announced the state’s “Return to Learn: Reopening Iowa’s Schools Safely and Responsibly Plan.” The plan outlined the steps districts should take to move from full on-site learning, to hybrid, to temporary continuous/remote learning. This plan relies heavily on county health officials to perform contact tracing and communicate with parents if/when there is a positive COVID-19 case in our school system.
After a lengthy meeting with county health officials on Tuesday, it was determined that the governor’s plan for schools to work with their local county health officials is not complete. Therefore, additional time to work with Dubuque County Health Officials is imperative for us to reopen our schools safely and responsibly.
Based on these new developments from the state, we are recommending that we move the school start date back to Monday, August 24th. While we understand that this late change may be a challenge for some families, we believe that this decision is in the best interest of safely reopening our schools.
Here are the recommended changes to the school calendar:
- School will start on Monday, August 24th for all Kindergarten through 12th graders.
- Reminder: Until further notice we will hold face-to-face school, Monday-Thursday, from 8:00 to 3:00, each week and students will not attend school on Friday (beginning on August 28th).
- School will start for all Pre-K students on Tuesday, August 25th.
- The school year will end on Friday, June 4th.
- Students will still attend school for 184 days.
Attached is a draft of the calendar that we will be recommending to the board at the next meeting. Thanks for your continued flexibility throughout these challenging times.
Take care of yourself and your family.
Rick Colpitts, Superintendent
Western Dubuque Community School District