COVID-19 and managing the completion of a long list of construction projects have been top priorities on our school district's to do list over the past year, and will continue to be during the 2021-2022 school year.

After a very difficult year last year, we are looking forward to welcoming our students back in person this fall.  As we plan for the 2021-2022 school year, I can assure our district's families that the safety and wellbeing of our students and our staff are our top priority.

We learned a lot from the challenges we were faced with last year.  Our plans for dealing with COVID-19 are flexible enough to allow our schools to have the autonomy to respond if/when COVID-19 issues arise in our buildings.  We feel prepared to deal with the potential threat of the Delta variant, future variants and anything else COVID-19 may send our way this year. 

While COVID-19 hasn't gone away, people who are eligible to be vaccinated can help ensure as normal of an educational experience as possible for our students by going and getting vaccinated.  Our school district isn't in a position to take a political stance on masking or vaccinating.  The CDC, the MDH, and countless medical experts have repeatedly stated that getting vaccinated is the best defense against COVID-19.  The more people in our community who roll up their sleeves, the bigger the shield we can create for our kids, increasing the potential to provide our students with a quality in person educational experience.   

As the 2020-2021 school year came to a close, along with all of the COVID challenges, we were wrapping up a series of construction projects at our Elementary school that were funded by the 2019 referendum, and just starting a long list of projects at the High School.  The High School projects will be completed in phases throughout 2021-2022.  As different phases are completed, additions and renovated areas will be opened up for our students and staff.  We anticipate that everything we are currently working on will be fully completed by April, 2022.  You can check out a presentation I shared with the community last spring highlighting the projects we completed last year. Information on the phasing plan for the High School projects starts on page 35 of the presentation. 

Our High School Principal, Dr. Bernard has created a website chronicling the progress on the High School projects.  You can check it out for yourself at:  https://sites.google.com/schs.k12.mn.us/schs-construction/home.

Thanks again for your support of St. Charles Public Schools.

Respectfully,

Jeff Apse