When the 2021-22 school year kicks off in late summer, districts in Downstate Delaware plan to welcome students — all students — for full-time, in-person learning.

Based on increased COVID-19 vaccinations, revised guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Delaware’s recent relaxed state-of-emergency modifications governing capacity and social distancing, it’s goodbye to hybrid and remote models, as districts prep for a return to pre-pandemic status.

“The conditions allow it, and the board felt that it was important to have that information to the public as early as possible, so they can understand that the district is planning for that,” said Caesar Rodney spokesman Mike Williams.

It has been a confluence of things that is leading districts to pursue more in-person learning next year, even as they slowly built up face-to-face programming through this year. A large factor is school buses — loosened restrictions are allowing more students to board them, beginning as early as this summer.

“Increasing the number of students that can be in a classroom is important and great, but if we can’t figure out a way to actually transport the students to the school to have that availability, then there’s a disconnect,” Mr. Williams said. “So the school bus loosening of restrictions matches the classroom availability now, and those two things will help us to be able to bring as many students back as we can.”

In Lake Forest, Superintendent Dr. Steven Lucas said the district is looking at 100% face-to-face learning for students.

“We’re still going to have to be a little creative with our scheduling for buses and such, but we feel like we can make it work,” he said. “We’re probably going to have to stagger some of our schedules just to keep our bus capacity as low as possible.”

It was the relaxing of school transportation limits that opened up the option for Indian River, as well, Superintendent Dr. Jay Owens announced at the district’s Monday board of education meeting.

“The district is currently developing plans for all students to fully return to classrooms to start the 2021-22 school year. The district has no plans to return to a modified remote/hybrid model,” he said.

Dr. Owens noted that under existing requirements, face masks are still required in schools, with 3 feet of social distancing recommended.

“Busing has been amended to 3 feet when possible, and that’s the important change — ‘when possible’ for summer programming, and I believe that will move into our next school year,” said Dr. Owens.

Geographically, at 365 square miles, Indian River is the largest nonvocational district in Delaware, with a transportation network of 165 buses. Its enrollment is close to 11,000. And many schools are near or above capacity.

“We are planning for a full return. Now, with that, we would need — unless mandates continue to relax — to work with our schools to observe that 3-feet social distancing within our classrooms,” said Dr. Owens, adding there is work to be done “given our capacities at this point, and we are prepared to do that.”

He added that the state has said there may be the option for remote learning, “so we would need to look to see what criteria we would put in place to qualify students for that remote option,” but there is no guidance yet.

Indian River’s board supported the district’s full-scale return plan with a 9-0 approval.

“I have received an overwhelming number of emails from the professionals in the district that want exactly this to happen,” said IRSD school board president Rodney Layfield. “I would think 99% of every email I have got — from teachers and employees in the district asking about what direction we were going — everyone, I felt, was overwhelming in looking forward to a fall starting back full time. I, for one, am very much in favor of this, and I appreciate us putting it out there, so parents and the public understand what we are planning on doing this fall.”

It’s a similar story across Downstate, with many districts — Seaford, Laurel, Capital, Cape Henlopen, Sussex Tech, Woodbridge and Sussex Academy — already planning on full in-person learning, with leadership saying they have no intentions of returning to full-time or modified hybrid situations.

Since the pandemic’s arrival in March 2020, districts have navigated through shutdowns and capacity and social distancing restrictions that ushered in a different educational world of remote and hybrid (combination remote and in-school) models. Asynchronous and synchronous learning became household words.

“Nothing replaces proximity,” Dr. Lucas said. “You just can’t replace the classroom teacher, and while this remote learning has worked well for some students, for the majority of students that did not work as well as the face-to-face environment.”

And that’s just for the tangible things, he said.

There’s something to be said, he noted, about students maintaining a schedule: getting up in the morning, getting dressed, catching the bus and spending time around their peers and adults before going home to do their homework or participate in clubs and extracurriculars.

“There’s a lot to be said for that,” he said. “That has been virtually absent for the last 15 months or so.”

As schools gear up for a somewhat more standard year, summer programming is approaching, too.

“We really began that work back in January, as far as looking at how students had done the first half of the year and providing support for them to be successful,” said Paul Dunford, director of teaching and learning for Capital. “We’ve been really moving away from summer school as the only way to recover credit for the last several years; the pandemic obviously pushed us to move that a little bit faster.”

Though the district hasn’t had typical data points from regular years, they have used standards-based assessment and achievement data — classroom grades — to see where students are.

“We know that students who attended have lost very little,” he said. “We know that students who were not available to learn have lost more. And so our response has to be commensurate to that.”

Face-to-face programming will run from July to August in Capital, and capacity requirements will allow more students to participate, he said. The district will also have virtual programming.

Caesar Rodney’s summer programming will address students who need the classes to pass and those who need extra time, while some programs will be completely voluntary (like camps). Some are asynchronous, with staff available throughout the summer during office hours. The district will also offer paper/pencil work in grades kindergarten through eight for “those who want to unplug.”

Asynchronous will run all summer, 24/7. Formal summer school runs June 21 to July 20, Mondays through Thursdays.

Dr. Lucas said Lake Forest had “fairly good attendance all year,” similar to prior years. But attendance was counted differently for remote students, by the schoolwork they completed.

“While the number, that actual attendance percentage, was pretty similar to what it was in years past, we certainly don’t think students were giving us seven good solid hours of work five days a week,” he said. “So we’re not sure what the future holds. We’re hoping we get them back in the building, we start to promote those relationships again” and address what students missed in the remote-learning environment.

“We’re really working on a two-year learning-recovery program, with this summer being the first phase of our recovery back to face-to-face learning,” he said.