As Iowa’s public universities announce they will move to online-only instruction through April 3 because of the COVID-19 outbreak, most K-12 schools remain open — though districts are bracing for a possible shift to online learning.

Des Moines Public Schools announced on Thursday all classes and activities will be suspended through March 30, for a week after the schools’ spring breaks, though no other districts have announced cancellations as of Thursday.

The release from the district did not mention a shift to online instruction.

The Iowa City Community School District says it’s equipped to handle a shift to online learning, as students in grades 7-12 each receive a laptop from the district as part of a one-to-one technology program.

Adam Kurth, technology director for the district, said all upper-level students will have access to a computer in case the district moves to online instruction, and the district will likely be able to repurpose existing devices to be used by elementary-age students.

“We have about 8,000 kids in our elementary schools — we have the ability to scale up, if we need to, to around 6,000 devices,” Kurth said. “Realistically, we expect the demand to be in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 devices and we can meet that.”

The Iowa Department of Public Health confirmed 16 cases of the coronavirus in Iowa, with 14 individuals residing in Johnson County. All 14 cases as well as another person living in Carrol County are tied to an early March cruise to Egypt.

Though some UI students interviewed by the DI expressed concern of whether Iowa City could handle the demand of thousands of students learning online, Kurth said the multiple internet providers in the city would likely be able to handle the increased traffic.

“We’re fairly fortunate in terms of internet connectivity in our community, not only being relatively robust, but also provided through a number of carriers,” he said. “When we look at the diversity of options availability, it makes me a little less concerned that an issue with one service is going to take down the entire district, or that the amount of traffic is going to overwhelm any one carrier.”

Staci Hupp, communications director for the Iowa Board of Education, said the board does not have the legal authority to allow school districts to use online learning in place of face-to-face instruction, though it is working with school districts to develop alternative options.

“We completely understand the unique circumstances and we’re exploring possible next steps to assist school districts in on this issue,” Hupp said.

Iowa school districts are required to be in session for 180 days a year, or 1,080 hours, according to the Iowa Department of Education.

Kurth said Iowa City schools are able to provide mobile hot-spot connectivity to students without broadband connectivity in their homes, though this technology only works because Iowa City generally has strong cellular data connectivity.

“If we were in a less densely populated area and not near a metropolitan city, that suddenly becomes a whole lot tougher — you can hand out wireless hotspots, but a lot of kids aren’t going to have reasonable data coverage,” Kurth said. “We have cable companies, we have phone companies that are able to provide over DSL. In many less densely populated areas, they may have only one provider choice, or there might not be any provider choice beyond satellite internet, which is notoriously unreliable.”

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