DSUSD school board votes to bring seniors back to campus four days a week
A proposal to bring all Desert Sands Unified School District (DSUSD) students back onto its campus four days a week failed Tuesday night. The proposal would not impact students who have elected to stay on distance learning.
The school board did vote to bring the district's high school seniors back to campus four days a week.
The proposal would've combined the district's two cohort groups at all grade levels in order to expand the number of in-person days. The move would've gone into effect on May 3, 2021, a month before the last day of school.
The proposal failed due to a lack of a second to the motion from board members. Board vice president Ana Conover was the lone motion in the vote.
Following the failed proposal, a board member proposed a motion to just bring back high school students. One board member said they would support the motion if it is just seniors. A discussion on this proposal continued and was ultimately approved.
The majority of parents who participated in public comment on this topic wanted to go ahead and have students in classrooms for four days a week, although there were some who disagreed with the decision.
Trina Gonzalez-Alesi, President, Desert Sands Teachers Association, represents 1,350 certificated-DSUSD employees. During public comment, she said that a survey with 859 responses showed that around two-thirds did not want to combine cohort groups.
As far as the district's plans for graduations, district spokesperson Mary Perry told News Channel 3 the seven DSUSD high schools are formulating plans for in-person graduations with details to be provided soon.
