MANITOWOC, Wis. (WFRV) Parents in Manitowoc share many of the same frustrations. They say it’s hard to get help for their children when all the classes are held remotely and now the school board president responds to parents.

“When you have high school students in advanced placement classes and you can’t help them with what they need to do. It’s frustrating”, says Kristina Koening. She has two sons at Lincoln High School and when the Manitowoc Public School District went virtual her sons experienced some very unreal problems.

Koening says, “Her son had his eye set on making it to state this year for wrestling, but right now he’s practicing by himself in the living room, virtually.”

Dave Nickles, the Manitowoc School Board President empathizes with parents like Kristina and responds, “You can’t do it. You can’t wrestle virtually.”

Parents say the matrix created on the Manitowoc Public School District’s website for returning to a blended model is unrealistic.

Koening says, “Nobody really has a good answer. Nobody really knows and that’s the frustrating part.”

Nickels wants the district to take a more holistic approach. He says he doesn’t want the COVID-19 rates to be the primary factor in getting kids back to class.

Nickles says, “One of the things I’m going to propose is that we make an effort to bring students back as soon as possible and that would be at the very latest the beginning of the next year. January 4th would be the first day back at school.

Nickels says he wants the school district to phase in a return starting with the studens most in jeopardy.

“For example, our special education students and students that are struggling that we know are struggling the most in the virtual format. Then we would bring the younger students back and would throughout that process being bringing more students back until we had them all full time and our goal is that during this school year all students would be back full time”, says Nickels.

Koening says, “I know we’re all struggling through this but our kids need to get back to some normalcy.”

School Board President Dave Nickels says he also plans to ask that all extraciricular activites resume.

Local Five did reach out to Manitowoc School Superintendent, Mark Holzman, but have not received a response.