FAIRMONT — Just days after making a decision to try and allow for sports and an milder learning model response to rising COVID cases in Martin County, The Fairmont Area School district has had to change course once again.

Superintendent Joe Brown notes what the changes include, and how the decision was made.

“The Department of Education contacted me Wednesday, and then Doctor (Rufus) Rodriguez, the president of our school board, and myself did a conference call Thursday with the Department of Education and the Minnesota Department of Health” he said.

“They directed that we need to go to distance learning at the high school starting Monday, and we need to go to distance learning at the elementary school on October 12. They’re going to let us keep our elementary kids in for one more week because the administrators, Andy Traetow and Michelle Rosen, have a plan to do some additional separation of students so that we can have them here safely.”

Brown said that the sudden chance is due to the fast rise in positive COVID cases in the area.

“The numbers are growing so high in Martin County, and it’s the numbers that are forcing us to do this.”

Brown notes that academics are not the only thing affected by the decision.

“The other part of that means that, starting Monday, there are no sports,” he continued. “There are no co-curricular activities at all, and no practices or anything. That will be for a minimum of two weeks, and then we have to go two weeks and have the numbers come down.

“The only way we can get kids back in school and kids back playing sports are for our local COVID numbers to be reduced significantly. Right now the projection is actually going up higher than most counties, and we just have way too many cases.”

Fairmont is not the only rural Minnesota school district to abruptly reverse course. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in its Friday edition that the Sibley East Public School District made the same decision. The Star Tribune said that district is returning to hybrid learning after instruction learning for just a week.

The district cited pressure from the State Department of Education and advice of the district’s attorney.