Not only is the world about to enter the eighth month of a global pandemic, but the West Coast of the United States is burning with forest fires, and the U.S. is entering a presidential election. All while locally, the decisions over how to handle school and COVID-19 change constantly. Decision after decision, a controversial governor and athletes protesting, all in the midst of a global pandemic – a sentence that describes what 2020 has been like for Iowa City.

On July 17, Governor Reynolds issued a proclamation instituting that Iowa Schools should focus on bringing students back to in-person learning in the 2020-2021 school year. The proclamation states that schools must have the majority of the school year in person with exceptions: when parents choose online for their kids, when local school and health officials approve a temporary move to online, when local health officials move individual students or classrooms to online, or a school moving to online due to weather. This announcement came days after the Iowa City School District announced their plan for the 2020-2021 school year – the majority online. 

“I always knew that there would be difficult decisions to be made as a Board member. I also knew that not everyone was going to agree with those decisions. But I certainly never imagined a situation like this,” said Iowa City Community School District School Board President Shawn Eyestone.

Fast forward six weeks ahead to a school board meeting deciding whether or not to accept a waiver granted by the state to allow two weeks online. The waiver was granted as a result of Johnson County’s high and climbing positivity rate, which brought Iowa to national news and Iowa was third in the world for most cases at one point. The board voted 6-0 to accept the waiver to be 100% online for the first two weeks of school. With school being online, extracurricular activities were up in the air. 

“Personally, I feel that we owe it to our students, our staff, their families, and our community to ensure that we are following best practices to keep them all healthy and safe. The struggle for me and others is how do you define healthy and safe. There are certainly negative effects of not having students in school. But there are also potentially severe negative effects of contributing to the community spread of a novel virus,” Eyestone said.

Taking fate into their own hands, athletes from many fall sports wrote on signs, put on their jerseys, and went to the ESC building to protest. The majority of protestors were football players, with volleyball players, parents, and other fall athletes. The protestors came from all three high schools in the district, City, West, and Liberty. 

“I protested to ‘Let us play’ because I think the football team, and all fall sports, deserved a chance. I was hoping to get the District on our side, which I think we did. But it was the Governor that I really wanted our message to go to,” Goodrich said. “My message was for the Governor because I want her to change her law that forced schools to open if they wanted athletics. It seemed like a last-ditch effort to make schools open and get things back to a sense of normalcy when they really shouldn’t yet. If we were allowed to practice all summer why did we have to stop just because school started? It doesn’t make any sense to take opportunities away from us just because she wanted to punish the schools for going online.”

Most summer and fall sports had been practicing over the summer, starting with softball and baseball. Then football, volleyball, and cross country joined the mix. Each group takes their own precautions and methods to control COVID.

“I am a firm believer that Athletics and School should be separate. There are [fewer] people involved and everyone is there by choice, they are not required to play football or run cross country or play volleyball, they are there because they know the risk, their families know the risk, and they are comfortable playing the sports they love. This goes for things like show choir as well,” Goodrich said.  

When the board voted to approve of two weeks 100% online, they did vote for all extracurriculars and school activities to be online. However, after the protests, board members said that they believed that the sports could continue on safely as they had proved over the summer. They blamed the state for taking away localized power to make decisions regarding what is in-person and what is online. Lisa Williams urged parents and students to urge the governor to change her mind.

That led to the district joining the lawsuit with the Iowa State Education Association against the state to change who had control over what each district does from state power to individual localized power to have the right to decide what’s best for each situation, and less generalized over the entire state. 

“It is the Board’s responsibility to provide direction to the district and in turn the district’s legal counsel on what direction to take. We decided to join the Iowa State Education Association in their suit as opposed to creating our own. As a board, we have stated that we want to abide by the law and the guidance we have received,” Eyestone said. “However, we feel like the guidance given was a one size fits all approach and that does not take into account our local conditions. Because of that, we felt the need to argue for our rights to have some agency on metrics for how we would deliver our educational programming.”

This caused controversy on social media. The protest and the board’s reaction was the source of many different arguments and differences of opinion.

“My opinion on the protest(s) a group of students held to make the school board let them have their fall sports is that it seems pretty ironic that they gathered in a large group to protest something that was put into place, because of large groups/gatherings, and that although it may potentially change some people’s futures, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 fall sports should be postponed,” Kathryn Fullenkamp ‘22 said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-mask but it feels like some students don’t want to acknowledge that masks aren’t foolproof, especially in high contact sports.” 

According to the CDC, when social distancing is not possible, wearing a mask reduces the risk of spreading COVID-19. They also state that wearing a mask can reduce the chances of contracting and spreading the disease from person to person. Depending on the type of mask, it is more or less effective.

“I also heard from a lot of people that disagree with me that if people don’t want to participate then they don’t have to do it and it won’t affect them. To me, by saying that they aren’t taking into fact that if one person who does participate in in-person sports goes to practice with COVID-19, then they have most likely spread it to many other members of the team, their families, friends, and everyone, and the more that they come into contact with before they even know they have it.”

These protests were at the forefront of all social media for about a week surrounding the actual protest date. Many people were taking to Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook to share their views. 

“I do think that it is really important to use your platform and voice on what you believe in. Making conversation about a topic and keeping those conversations going with your families, friends, and classmates (some of who are eligible to vote) creates an opening where you can maybe change or further reinforce their opinions,”  Fullenkamp said. “They can do the same with their peers, or even change your own stance. There isn’t an age [requirement] on when you’re allowed to start making a difference and have an impact on your community.”

The Iowa City School District joined the Iowa State Education Association’s lawsuit against the state. On September 3, it was heard in court. The hearing took place at the Johnson County District Court with Judge Mary Chicchelly. Within the next week, the decision regarding the lawsuit was made. Judge Chicchelly and the court ruled that it was within the state’s power to decide when in-person school occurs. Effectively instating Governor Reynold’s 50% online mandate. 

“The thing that caught my attention the most was that the district was asking for local control over the decision for online school, and extracurricular activities. My personal opinion is that they had every right to file the lawsuit,” Goodrich said. “I think that Governor Reynolds doesn’t have the right to force us to do in-person school if we want to do sports and other extracurricular activities. Especially since she never gave a statewide stay at home order when the pandemic started, if local officials were able to make their own decisions then, why can’t we do that now?”

In the end, the lawsuit was not successful and localizing power did not happen. What percentage of school is online versus in person, as well as the two week waivers for high percentage areas of Iowa, is still up to the governor. 

Now, the two-week waiver has ended. Two full weeks 100% online, learning and extracurriculars are over. Hybrid and extracurriculars are back up again, if athletes stayed up to the standard of fitness that coaches want and how the two weeks went for everyone are questions in the works of being answered.

“These two weeks so far have definitely been a challenge at times for me. As far as the team goes, there are just a lot of questions, opinions, and frustrations that we all have. I think one of our biggest challenges right now is sticking together as a team, putting aside everything else, and doing what is best for the team as a whole,” Goodrich said.

There is still a possibility of another spike and how long the hybrid school will last and how everything is going to work.

“We’re committed to getting our students and staff back into our schools as soon as we can.  We know that is the best place for learning to happen as well as being an important part of students’ growth as members of the community. We want to make sure that the local conditions in our area support doing that in a safe manner,” Eyestone said.