MANKATO — With the start of the new school year in full swing, the Mankato Area Public Schools board received its annual back to school report at its regular meeting Tuesday.
“It’s the only time where we have all of our cabinet members at the front table together, and we want to make sure that they speak at a level that’s more systematic,” Superintendent Paul Peterson said. “There’s a whole lot of people that work very closely with me to help lead and manage and monitor our system throughout the year, so our board will hear everything.”
The superintendent’s board includes Director of Teaching and Learning Travis Olson, Director of Administrative Services John Lustig, Director of Business Services Amanda Heilman, Director of Student Support Services Sam Steinman, Director of Community Education Audra Boyer and Director of Communications Melanie Helling.
Part of the presentation included an update on enrollment across the district, which Peterson says he is “optimistic” about.
“I’m really happy to say we are looking very strong because we had estimated around 7,650 (enrolled) students, and right now we’re at about 7818,” Heilman said.
Peterson said that, across September, enrollment tends to fluctuate a lot; but that having positive numbers this early is a good sign.
“That’s why schools use the October 1st (deadline). That’s basically when things have pretty much settled down. But I would say we are optimistic based on the registrations that we saw over the summer,” Peterson said.
Board member Elizabeth Hanke questioned Heilman on if that enrollment stability was present across the district, or if there were spikes at certain schools. Heilman said “more information is coming” about that, but right now K-5 schools are up around 89 students and 6-12 schools are up around 100.
Another issue presented to the board was funding for adult basic education (ABE) classes; laid out by Boyer.
“In May, we were informed that we were going to receive our federal allotment. However, on June 30th, we were informed that we were not going to be receiving our federal allotment, and so that required us in July of this year to have some pretty quick turnaround and decision-making to address the $20,000 shortfall,” Boyer said. “Layoffs were committed and programs were reduced.”
However, Boyer said that in July those funds — which represent about 20% of ABE’s overall yearly budget — were released and delivered to the school district, allowing them to hire back all those laid off and reimplement some programs.
“Teachers and courses were reinstated through the 25-26 school year, and today is their first day of school,” Boyer said.