Superintendent Joe Brown

FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Area School District will begin its rolling start return to school plan for students at the high school starting on Monday. The plan was approved by the district’s COVID-19 consult team on Thursday.

During Tuesday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Joe Brown said they were considering bringing back all students in grades 7-12 full-time four days a week, but having all students do distance learning every Wednesday.

However, the consult team, which is made up of Fairmont school administrators, representatives of the Minnesota Department of Health and representatives of the Minnesota Department of Education, said the high school needed to implement a rolling start with three grade levels at a time for a period of two weeks.

“It’s part of an executive order from the Governor. They think it’s safer to do it that way so we don’t have all the students back at once. It’s to protect our staff and students,” Brown said.

Starting Monday, Feb. 1, grades 7, 8 and 12 will return to school five days a week for two weeks. Students in grades 9, 10 and 11 will continue to attend school in a hybrid model, with half of the students attending in person on Monday and Tuesday and the other half attending in person on Thursday and Friday. On Wednesdays, students in grades 9, 10 and 11 will attend school online.

Starting Feb. 15, the plan is to to have all students in grades 7-12 attend school in person five days a week.

Brown pointed out that all students will come back, except those who have opted to continue in distance learning. There are approximately 200 students in grades 7-12 out of 828 who have chosen to continue with distance learning.

“Students have had the right to do online school for many years in Minnesota. Since the pandemic, students now have the right to do online school through their regular school district,” Brown said.

In addition to the 200 high school students who have opted to continue with online learning through the Fairmont Area School District, there are an additional 40 students in the district that have been enrolled in various online schools, including Blue Sky, Insight School of Minnesota and Worthington Vibe Academy.

Brown explained why the consult team decided to bring the seventh and eighth grade classes back full-time first.

“They’re our youngest and online is harder for younger kids, so we felt we needed to get them back,” Brown said.

In the seventh grade class, there are 165 students. In the eighth grade class, there are 146 students. While the seventh and eighth grade classes are the largest, the senior class is the smallest class with 116 students.

“Because they’re the smallest class, we asked the consult team to allow us to have three grade levels back for the next two weeks. We wanted the seniors back because they’re a smaller class and because we want to make sure they’re all on track and eligible to graduate,” Brown said.

Brown stressed that this plan wasn’t a school board decision, but a consult team decision.