At a special meeting on Monday, the Adel-DeSoto-Minburn School Board voted to return to on-site learning this fall.

Over the last couple of months, the District has put together several plans that range from 100% on-site and 100% online learning, and a hybrid plan that features a mixture of the two. The Board ultimately felt that the negatives of not having students on-site outweigh the benefits of the hybrid plan, which featured students alternating days between coming to school and learning remotely.While the hybrid model does increase social distancing, board members mentioned the pace of learning would be drastically reduced. They also emphasized that school provides more than what the classroom can offer. Topics such as social skills, mental health, and structure were all mentioned as negatives of the hybrid model.

Before approving the on-site model, Board Vice President Bart Banwart explained why he felt this is the best way to move forward, “First off, we all love this community, and we all love every student that comes through this building. We want what’s best for them. There’s no way to have 100% support on this. We knew that coming into this. If we had a crystal ball, it would be a real easy decision. We’re doing the best that we can with what we’ve been tasked to do and that’s educate these students. Provided all the mitigation we have, I’m fully supportive of going back to full on-site.”

The district has put an emphasis on mitigation of the virus. Face coverings will be required in the secondary schools when social distancing can not be maintained. Each student will receive two cloth face coverings and each teacher will receive five in addition to a reusable face shield. The district has also purchased enough hand sanitizer to ensure it will be accessible in any room throughout each facility.

There has also been some action taken by the district and the Board to help staff with the hurdles they will have in front of them. The Board approved another full-time nurse position to help with the extra workload in the high school. The first four Fridays of the school year will be remote learning days so teachers can develop their abilities to teach online. After that, school will be dismissed at 1 p.m. on Fridays for more teacher development. Other school districts in Dallas County have also approved on-site learning plans including Perry, Woodward-Granger, and Van Meter.