There has been plenty of news this year around public schools and COVID-19. National media outlets continue to publish, or insinuate, that schools aren’t open; the Federal Government has passed stimulus legislation that includes money to open up schools and there are pockets of pushback in our state with schools not yet open for all students.

I want our community to know that all of our staff have been in school, working with all students since last August. We did take pause a in December with the large increase of COVID cases in our communities. I bring this up because it is easy to paint everyone the same today.

Our staff have gone above and beyond to work with students, adjust to the new health and safety environment, work with students in-person or remotely and while doing this, they continued to focus on each student. Early in the school year, public schools frequently received new state mandates that forced us to adjust what we were doing. As we made the necessary adjustments, our staff -all of them – continued to provide the very best for all of our students.

I am proud of the work we are doing for our students and families. It hasn’t gone without bumps as we adjusted and adapted in this pandemic environment. We continue to tweak and adjust our plans as we go, like one adjusts levers and dials on machines to get the most out of it. We will continue to review what we do and make the necessary adjustments in order for all students to continue to grow.

We are very excited for the new Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center and what this program will bring for our students and the community. I can’t say thank you enough for the great support of our community and the public-private partnerships that are behind this work. We are blessed with the great donation of a facility from the Ryberg family. We truly appreciate this gift and know that the bar is high for getting this project to the finish line. Our staff continue to develop courses that align with state and industry standards, plan out equipment needs and coordinate for necessary training they will need for the new programs.

Above all, I want to thank our community for the support of New Ulm Public Schools. We can’t do this alone, it takes all of us working together in order for our community to prosper and grow.

GO EAGLES!