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Officials from the Burlington Community School District have the decision to delay the start of the school year by one week from its original start date.

The Burlington Community School District Board of Education held an emergency meeting on Friday at 10:30 a.m. to discuss options with starting the 2020-2021 school year. In a social media post on Friday, the Burlington Community School District announced that they will be delaying the start of the school year by one week.

According to the social media post, officials say that the first day of school had been scheduled for August 24. The Board of Education cited the Iowa Department of Public Health statistics saying that the COVID-19 positivity rate of of Des Moines County is at 15.3%. This is the 3rd highest rate amongst counties in the state of Iowa.

The Burlington Community School District Board of Education said they considered three options.

  • Continuing with the current plan to start school on August 24 on a hybrid A/B Day schedule.
  • Apply for “Temporary Permission to Provide Primarily Continuous/Remote Learning”
  • Delay start of school for 1 week.

The Board voted unanimously to delay the start of the school year to August 31, 2020, one week after the original start date, The social media post said this is for the safety of staff and students.

The Burlington Community District Board of Education will meet again for a regular session on August 24 but will also plan to hold a special meeting on August 26. the meeting on the 26th will be to review the state of the public health emergency and plans for reopening schools in Burlington.

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