Des Moines Schools Defy Governor's Reopening Order Amid Coronavirus

No matter how much tension has surrounded the reopening of schools during the coronavirus pandemic, most state and local officials have found a way to arrive at some sort of plan by the first day of classes.

But not in Des Moines, where school began this week with local officials openly defying Iowa’s governor and a judge’s order by teaching remotely. The decision puts the district’s funding and administrators’ jobs at risk, and leaves students locked out of athletics and their parents uncertain whether online classes will even count.

The conflict is perhaps the nation’s starkest example of the tension between Republican state officials, who have followed the lead of President Trump in pushing schools to reopen classrooms, and local administrators, often in Democratic-leaning cities, who fear that in-person instruction will put students’ and teachers’ health in danger.

“It kind of feels like science versus politics,” the Des Moines schools superintendent, Thomas Ahart, said. “The last thing I want to do is make this political. What I desperately want to do is to be able to honestly tell my staff and my students and their families that I’m doing everything in my power to keep them safe.”