This week on The Exchange, we are introducing a new ongoing project. It's called: Going Viral: Lessons Learned During the Pandemic. We focus on parents, teachers, and children's experiences as students return to school with the Coronavirus still raging in some parts of Iowa.
We speak with the Behrens family of Sioux City. The family includes Mom and Dad, Donna and Todd. Todd Behrens is the Sioux City Art Center Director. They have one son named Tate, who just started 5th grade at Perry Creek Elementary. We talk to Donna and Tate and begin with Donna sharing details on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on her family and her school year aspirations.
Donny Reblitz is on the School Board at Woodbury Central school district in Moville. I talked with Donny about how his family adapted to schooling at home and how the new school year is going.
Kelsey Anderson is an art teacher at Dakota Valley Community Schools, and her husband teaches in the Lawton-Bronson School District. Kelsey and her husband were teaching their own children and their students online when school ended in the middle of March. I talk with her about their experiences and their hopes for this school year.
We talk with Pam Venturi of Sioux City, a single mother of 5 school-age children, and Daisy Marquez, who is a mother of four children in Sioux City. I talked with Daisy about her family, how they have fared over the last few months, and how her girls are getting a little help from Girls, Inc., in their virtual learning this fall.
