December 18, 2020

Decorah Community School District is committed to providing transparent, accurate data regarding cases of isolation and/or quarantining related to COVID-19 while maintaining the confidentiality of students and staff. On September 18, the Iowa Department of Public Health and Iowa Department of Education released guidance to school districts and local public health agencies detailing communication of COVID-19 related data.

The Iowa Department of Public Health guidance can be found here.

Summary Positive COVID-19 

• Of approximately 290 Staff – Twenty (20) positive COVID-19, Eighteen (18) recovered
• Of approximately 1575 On-site students – Fifty-nine (59) positive COVID-19, Forty (40) recovered

Emergency Closure Remote Learning Approved

This past Monday, the Decorah CSD Board of Directors approved an emergency closure remote learning plan.  The board appreciated feedback from staff, parents, and students to help make this decision.  

In the approved plan, the District will deploy remote learning for the third, and any subsequent, emergency school cancellation days. This means that the first two emergency cancellation days will not be made up at the end of the school year, nor will students be required to engage in remote learning during those first two closures. Additionally, remote learning will not be used as an alternative instructional model during late starts or early outs. 

County and District Trend Data

The graphs below reflect county and district data taken each Tuesday and Thursday since school began.

Superintendent Mark Lane said, “The data above reflects what we were concerned might occur when the Decorah CSD Board of Directors held a special meeting on Monday, November 23.  I am grateful to our staff and board for their foresight in establishing next Monday and Tuesday as remote learning days.”

“We have approached this school year with a mindset of creating manageable chunks of time.  We started with the first five weeks of school in a hybrid model.  Then we spent from the beginning of October to Thanksgiving break in full on-site learning.  We are now wrapping up a four-week period of combined on-site and remote learning.”

“We enter winter break and then the new year excited that our country is starting to see vaccines being administered to essential health care workers and high-risk populations. Yet, we know we are not in a position to let our guard down, and we must continue to work each and every day to manage our collective and individual health and safety.”