INDIANOLA, Iowa — Danielle Burrows is one of many working parents who had to make do when schools shut down back in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Her two children, a kindergartener and fifth grader, are both students at Irving Elementary, the year-round school in Indianola.
The Indianola Community School District gave parents the option to choose between in-person learning or online learning for their children. Burrows and her husband chose to send their kids back mainly because they are both working parents and also because they feel it is the best choice for their kids’ learning.
“I have a kindergartener and there’s a lot they learn at that age. He needs to be in the classroom,” Burrows said. “As a parent you can help them at home with homework, but actually having to teach them these things — that was the thing for me.”
Just days after her kids returned to campus for the beginning of the school year on Aug. 4, Irving became the first school in Iowa to have its first positive case. The school did not detail who tested positive for privacy reasons but said it was in a class of 24 first graders.
“It wasn’t a matter of if it would happen but when it would happen,” Burrows said.
That sentiment is echoed by the district’s superintendent, Art Sathoff, although he said he was disheartened to hear the news.
Sathoff said because the school is isolating individual classrooms and not “cross-contaminating” with other students and faculty on campus, they are choosing to only quarantine the first grade class. Those students will do remote learning for the next 14 days and the district will work with county health services to do contact tracing.
“There’s no way of knowing where an individual picked it up and I think it’s important to note that no one is finger pointing,” he said.
Sathoff said the community support so far has aided the situation. He describes Irving as a “unique” school, given it is a year-round option parents in the community choose to send their children to, rather than being placed based on address.
As Burrows chose Irving for her children, she will also choose to send them back to school on Monday, despite the positive COVID-19 case.
She said she takes comfort knowing the classrooms have been segregated and that the transparency and honesty from the district gives her confidence going forward. As president of the Parent Teacher Organization, Burrows said she is hearing similar thoughts from many other parents.
“Obviously we have all talked about this case,” she said. “But the community we have here is unbreakable no matter the situation. We are stuck together and pull through for our students and staff.”