Even in advance of the Governor making the announcement about shutting things down , White Bear Lake Area Schools made the decision to
Wayne Kazmierczak delay students coming back
from Spring Break . “ It was in part to give our state leaders time to make an announcement that we thought was coming ,” said Superintendent Kazmierczak , who added that it was also to give the District time to transition to distance learning .
At the same time White Bear Lake Area Schools were scrambling to move to distance learning , Century College in White Bear Lake was making a similar transition . “ When we got the directive to get everyone off campus in almost a nanosecond , it was chaotic to say the least , but we made it work ,” said Angelia Millender , President , Century College . “ We converted all of our in-person classes to online classes , and got staff up and running in a telecommuting setting .”
At first , however , Century College did not have an infrastructure in place to deliver services like financial aid and advising support virtually ; but fortunately it came with time , added technology , and staff members ’ resourcefulness and hard work . “ When we switched everything to virtual , it was a huge learning curve for our teams , but we did it by being more creative than ever in how we delivered services to students and offering high quality , connected engagements in virtual settings ,” said Pakou Yang , Vice President , Century College .
In terms of a comeback ,
I think there ’ s a lot of optimism and a lot of excitement about all sorts of things , including our building projects and also our robust , strategic plan . We ’ ve tried to keep that at the forefront as we ’ ve navigated this year as well . This past year has been challenging , but there ’ s a lot of great work happening . Moving forward , we ’ re looking forward to the implementation of our plan .
- Wayne Kazmierczak , Superintendent , White Bear Lake Area Schools
Both Century College and White Bear Lake Area Schools finished Spring semester virtually . Then when COVID numbers began coming down in early summer , the decision was made to allow some students back into the classroom .
“ Summer school was the first time we offered hybrid instruction , and it was offered when fall of the 2020 - 2021 school year began too ,” said Superintendent Kazmierczak .
The students who have returned to the classroom have been split into two groups . Some come into the school building on Monday and Wednesday . The others attend classes on Tuesday and Thursday .
“ About a quarter of the White Bear Lake Area Schools students in K - 12 remained in distance learning when we started the school year .
Alison Gillespie
That figure has remained fairly consistent throughout the school year ,” said Dr . Alison Gillespie , Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning at White Bear Lake Area Schools .
A significant number of students at Century College enrolled in online courses for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 . Century provided on-campus
Angelia Millender courses for career and technical programs when fall of the 2020 – 2021 school year began as well . However , Millender thinks that by the fall of 2021 , Century will add more face to face courses to the schedule and for the 2021-2022 academic year , Century hopes to offer a mix of on-campus , online , and blended / hybrid courses .
34 Northeast Metro Business