Operations may be able to get back to normal , but it will be some time before schools in the Northeast Metro , and nationwide , can get back to where they were pre-pandemic . Superintendent Kazmierczak and Assistant Superintendent Gillespie said the pandemic will continue to have an effect on the School District for the foreseeable future .
“ This has had a huge impact on us enrollment wise ,” said Superintendent Kazmierczak . “ Enrollment is down statewide about two percent and we are down 300 students from where we thought we ’ d be , which will impact the current budget and future budgets .
We do believe that our enrollment will recover ; it will just take some time .”
Funding for Grades K – 12 is based largely on student enrollment . As a result of the anticipated losses , the White Bear Lake Area School District plans to reduce its expenditure budget heading into the 2021 – 2022 school year .
Enrollment was expected to be down at Century College as well , but officials say they are in a stronger position going into the 2021 – 2022 school year . Knowing the college would likely be challenged with declining enrollment due to the pandemic , administration had the foresight to plan for a budget year with negative enrollment .
DISTANCE LEARNING DATA
About 25 percent of White Bear Lake Area School students have remained 100 percent in distance learning , even though classrooms have reopened . These figures are as of Feb . 21 , 2021 .
Grade / Percentage of students in a distance learning situation
K – 2nd Grade / 13.8 % 3rd – 5th Grade / 18.7 % 6th – 8th Grade / 30.3 % 9th – 12th Grade / 36.7 %
“ We projected that the best worse-case scenario would be negative ten percent of our enrollment and that proactive approach allowed us
Pakou Yang to meet our budget target . “ We actually ended up at approximately negative eight percent , which is slightly better than projected ,” said Yang .
White Bear Lake Area Schools Superintendent Kazmierczak thinks the District will be back to in-person learning in the fall , but things might look at little bit different . “ We don ’ t know if students will need to wear masks . We don ’ t know if we will still have to adhere to social distancing , but I think those things are minor . We ’ ll have kids back in school ,” he said .
President Millender said things are looking better for Fall Semester 2021 at Century College , but things will look different as well . “ The pandemic has been challenging ; however , what it brought out was resiliency and innovations in and out of the classroom , deeper care and compassion for our students and each other , and our collective commitment to advance our college ,” said Millender . “ The future Century will look different in that our new normal will be based on the lessons learned and new innovations gained .” vhedc . com 35