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These Iowa school districts have the most students

Des Moines Public Schools has nearly double the number of students than any other school district in Iowa, according to Iowa Department of Education data.

Several Iowa school districts defied the law this week by deciding to start the year completely online without a waiver from the state.

That means the districts themselves are hoping to decide for themselves when to move between online and in-person learning.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday that those school districts are in the minority.

Let's take a look at how many students would be impacted by online-only learning plans.

Here are the top 10 districts in Iowa by K-12 student enrollment: 

  • Des Moines — 32,607
  • Cedar Rapids — 16,852
  • Sioux City — 15,017
  • Davenport — 14,931
  • Iowa City — 14,572
  • Ankeny — 12,256
  • Waukee — 11,701
  • Waterloo — 10,866
  • Dubuque — 10,489
  • Council Bluffs — 9,122

Full list: Iowa Department of Education data on student enrollment (sorted by total enrollment)

To view that same list by district in alphabetical order, click here.

Three of those districts—Urbandale, Des Moines and Iowa City—do not want to start the year with any in-person instruction.

Those districts total more than 50,000 students. Des Moines Public Schools takes up more than 6% of the total number of students in Iowa.

But still, a small number compared to the more than 490,000 students currently enrolled in public school across Iowa.

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View county-by-county positivity rate as reported by IDPH below.

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