(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says in-person classes are to be the primary mode of educating Iowa’s K-through-12 students this school year.

On Monday night, Urbandale’s school board voted to continue online classes for a year-round school that state officials ordered to start in-person classes this Friday. And Waukee school officials issued a statement, saying state law gives them local control over these decisions. During a mid-day news conference, Reynolds strongly pushed back.

Reynolds says the vast majority of Iowa school are planning to start the school year with in-person classes, while a handful of districts are not following her guidance.

If Urbandale, Waukee, Des Moines, Ames and Iowa City districts begin this August with remote learning without state officials’ approval, the governor says students will not get credit for those days of on-line instruction. The governor also is accusing the media of stoking fears that children will contract the virus at school and teachers may die of it.

Reynolds says school administrators in districts that begin remote learning without state approval may lose their license.

Reynolds says state officials will meet with administrators from the five districts that are so far sticking with plans for remote learning in hopes of resolving the impasse.

The governor’s spokesman says a state-maintained website will list the 14-day rolling average of positive Covid-19 cases in every school district. Once the so-called positivity rate reaches 15 percent AND at least 10 percent of students are absent, district officials may seek state permission to send all students home and shift to online instruction only for 14 days.