Congratulations to all of our area graduates! No one ever thought your final year would end up like it has, but through the support of school staff, parents and our communities, you made it. There have been many years when we said — no other class can say they did this or that. The Class of 2020 can truly state that they graduated in a much different environment than any other class. I can say that our parents and staff have done amazing work together for students to see them through these interesting and difficult times.

In a normal year, we have our summer programming plans complete and we are finalizing what the start of the next school year plans will be. With the current events (dealing with COVID-19), we make plans and then adjust them often as updated or new information comes out from the Governor’s Office or from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). We have finalized our summer daycare program plans now that we know what the expectations are. Kids Connection will continue to provide the summer daycare programming and work with families on options throughout the summer.

We will continue with the summer meal program through the month of June. There are many rules with the school lunch program, most of which come from the USDA. Many waivers were approved for schools in the nation to do different meal distribution during the distance learning time. There are additional waivers the state has applied for that will allow schools to continue with the food program over the summer.

New Ulm Public Schools will end the school year on June 4th. Each school has developed plans for turning in equipment and instructional materials, end of year celebrations (remote and via technology) and other tasks associated with the closure of a school year. Distance Learning has been challenging for everyone. My thanks go out to all of our parents for their continued support and to all of our staff for the new and different work you were required to do. Our staff continued to step up and find creative ways to stay connected with their students and continued to keep the students engaged and working on their school work.

My hope is that families, staff and our community members as a whole, are able to find time to enjoy some semblance of normalcy this summer.

Go Eagles!