By Teri Knight, News Director
In less than 8 days, teachers and staff retooled their whole way of delivering education. Distance learning began across the state on Tuesday. Northfield Superintendent Matt Hillmann commented that, “there are people on our staff that two weeks ago had no idea what zoom was they thought it was a setting on their camera. And now they are conducting video conference sessions with students via the zoom application”. The relationship between students and teachers is very important so they, “focused this week on just making sure that kids were acclimating to this environment. So we’re taking it slow the first
week to go fast. So what I’m hearing from people is overall success”. The District uses the Schoology learning management platform. Hillmann likened it to a closed facebook group, focused on learning. He reports that, while there were intermittent glitches, overall it went well. At one point, they had over 31,000 student connections on Tuesday and 2500 teacher connections. The District has over 98% of students able to access the internet and just received 50 hotspots that they will deliver to those who don’t. Hillmann’s full interview is HERE.
NH&C stops deliveries to the hospital
As of today, Northfield Hospital + Clinics is not allowing deliveries of items for patients or staff at Northfield Hospital. This includes flowers, food, newspapers and cards. This helps minimize the ways virus may enter the hospital – throught the items themselves, or delivery people. Laundry and essential personal care items (like shampoo and body wash) may be delivered for Long Term Care Center residents and Medical/Surgical patients. NH&C writes, “our staff are so grateful for the support that our caring community offers at this challenging time. Virtual support is the best kind right now”. They invite you to connect with patients and residents via phone or video chat, and show your support to staff on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Sheriff Dunn on physical distancing, boating and more
Sheriff Troy Dunn said folks are readying their boats. His department has. He said, “people are wanting to get out and they’re transitioning from the fish house to the boat and the water is still really cold. So I want to tell everybody remind everybody make sure you prepare for the weather”. Wear your float coat. Others will be out trying to clear areas with tornado damage. Dunn says be careful with chainsaws! You do not want to get hurt now. With warmer weather comes heightened criminal activity. They had at least one cabin break-in already. Dunn says, “don’t leave stuff out in plain view. Lock those things up and put motion lights on”. If you do see something, call 911, don’t take action yourself. Get a license plate number and description if you can. There’s not as many daytime issues right now, likely due to more folks being home, however, if you see something suspicious, call your local police department. As for monitoring physical distancing, he said they’re after voluntary compliance, “Our deputies are most likely just gonna stop and say Hey folks, you know, you’re supposed to limit your sizes to 10 people and you’re supposed to follow the six foot social distancing”. If they see significant large groups, he said, they might intervene, “We don’t want to have to write tickets for this. We want people to be safe. That’s the bottom line”. Dunn’s full interview is online.
Stay updated with KYMN
Information is changing daily, if not hourly, and KYMN is keeping you up to date with fact-based, reliable sources on our Updated Covid19 page. Click on the red box at the top of our website. Recent information includes how to handle your groceries and take-out food and information from the CDC on cleaning our offices, homes and facilities, in particular if someone has been sick. It covers all types of surfaces including carpet, electronics and laundry.
KYMN will carry Walz update LIVE at 1pm
Governor Walz will update Minnesotans on his next steps in the Covid-19 journey at 1 o’clock today. KYMN will carry that live. He will also hold his State of the State address from his Residence on Sunday at 7pm. The address will be streamed live on the Governors Youtube Channel.
