House and Senate bills requiring that schools offer a fully in-person learning option are advancing at the statehouse, with health officials concerned on how that may put school staff at risk of contracting COVID-19.

A bill has advanced to the full Senate while a similar proposal passed out of a House subcommittee Monday, in line with Governor Kim Reynolds’ education priorities set out this session. District 84 Representative Joe Mitchell (R) says he supports the bill, though he says that many school districts in southeast Iowa have done a good job at getting kids back in school buildings during the pandemic, “It’s schools like the Des Moines Public School District and Iowa City Public Schools that are the ones unfortunately playing political football, and so that has kind of rubbed some legislators wrong and now public education is kind of getting a bad name because of one or two districts that have decided not to do the right thing.”

Washington County Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski says there is value to having students in schools, but if this requirement is signed into law she believes schools must be supplied with the resources to mitigate any outbreaks, “I do think that if we’re going to go 100% in-person across the state they do need to take into consideration how to keep those people safe, because a lot of the people who might fall into those high risk categories are the people who make school possible. You know they are the teachers, they are the janitors, they are the aides, they are the people making school lunch, the bus drivers, so you can’t have school without those people.”

School and childcare workers are included in the next phase of vaccinations starting on February 1st, though Pettit-Majewski has stated that the county has received a smaller supply than the population’s demand. The proposed legislation would give districts about two weeks to make the change to fully in-person learning once it’s passed.