Families prep before Desert Sands Unified School District welcomes back all students to campus

After back and forth board meetings, Desert Sands Unified School District will allow all students back to the classroom four days a week starting May 3. 

News Channel 3’s Dani Romero has more on how this plan is going to work. 

Expect to see more students back on Desert Sands Unified School Districts campuses starting Monday. It's a day Lihn Young has been waiting for where both of her kids are able to get back into the classroom after struggling with distance learning. 

“Doing it on zoom has been just a circus," said Young, a DSUSD parent.

Right now, young said her kindergartener is learning in person four days a week but pretty soon her second grader will be able to do the same. 

“I can’t explain how happy or excited I am because I am really too excited to say it," said Riley Young, a second grader.

Desert Sands Unified School District will now allow all in-person students back on campus four days a week. 

This plan changed from last week where the board decided to only allow seniors in the classroom from two to four days a week. 

“Everything is going back to place and going back to normal," said Caleb Vanbuskirk, a Palm Desert High School Junior.

Superintendent Scott Bailey is equally excited about the new plans. 

“We are seizing the moment and moving forward and yesterday when the board made that unanimous decision for all students and in person learning that was a good day for Desert Sands but a great day for students," said Bailey.

Bailey said this model will eliminate the two separate cohorts. It's a natural step for a return to 5-days of in person instruction this fall.

“Now we are just simply allowing those students in cohort a for example that attend Monday, Tuesday only in person they can no join cohort B in their typical schedule which is Thursday, Friday," said Bailey. "So in essence we are doubling the amount of in person learning opportunities for TK through 12.” 

According to the district about 63% of students participate in-person learning. 

Scott explained that class sizes will vary by school grade but students will have a distance learning  option. 

“If there is a situation where a student can’t attend the additional days for whatever reason they can still elect to be a participant in the distance learning mode," said Bailey. "We have varying classes depending the grade level we are speaking to.” 

For families who selected to stay completely remote that’s still an option. 

But if distance learning students now want to head back to the classroom, they’ll have to make some new arrangements. 

For questions please email: WorkingTogether@DesertSands.us