By Teri Knight, News Director
Agriculture is top of mind for District 20 Senator Rich Draheim. Yesterday the Senate discussed the excess ag products with bars and restaurants closed. He pointed out tthe milk being dumped in Wisconsin and onions being buried in the south where they’re less than a penny a pound. With processing plants being shut down the MN Pork Producers Association is estimating an excess of a million hogs right now. Draheim said 36% of the capacity of the processing plants used for MN hogs are shut down and another is set to close which will bring that to 45%. When hogs reach 240 to 300 pounds they’re taken to market. Draheim said Pork producers will put down 70 to 80,000 hogs this week. This ripples down to the crops that
they use to feed the hogs and more. As the Stay at home order is set to expire on May 4th, Draheim commented on what Gov Walz’s decision might be, “I don’t think he’ll let restaurants go open 100% but he’ll hopefully do outside patios and then open up everything else”. Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the President asking to direct the Centers for Disease Control and/or the United States Department of Agriculture to coordinate efforts to quickly develop plans to safely re-open processing plants, getting them the (PPE) and sanitation resources they need and allow license exemptions for small processors to process the hogs. This is a link to a story with a Northfield farmer, Brad Kluver:
Wells checks in with 2 students/Hillmann updates on distance learning
Three weeks ago KYMN’s Logan Wells talked with a couple of Northfield’s High School students about their first day of online school. He checked in with them over the weekend to see how things are going. NHS Junior, Greenlea, said distance learning “has not been great” for her, saying she struggles with online classes and doesn’t retain 90% of the information. Meanwhile, sophomore Ella says it’s going good for her. Her teachers are giving meaningful assignments, and the assignments take a reasonable amount of time. Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann commented this morning, “when we put things in context our distance learning has been successful, but we also know that there’s lots of room to improve to make it better and we’re going to continue to work real hard through the end of the year to learn as much as we can about how we can deliver education in this medium”. The District is listening to parents and teachers who have seemed to have adjusted better than the national average. The next wave is how to assess the students’ work. As for attendance, they’re gauging that through online engagement, “the Middle School students are checking in, filling out a google form that helps us track attendance as well as looking at their engagement into the high school. We’re really looking at their engagement. We’ve had some successes and we’ve had some ups and downs of attendance”. Every Friday they have support teams to look at data to see who’s checking in online and who isn’t. Hillmann said they are following up on all of them. Listen to his full interview HERE.
“Rewarding, fun, meaningful” and challenging say staffers at LBSA
It’s a revolving door. LBSA staffers discussed the challenges related to staffing, how uncertain government funding directly impacts the quality of care for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities and the joys of working with those with special needs. Kathy Davidson commented that direct support is not a high paying position and, “it’s also rewarding and fun and meaningful, so it’s a fantastic job. But the people that we support have complex needs and our staff have to be ready to meet those needs”. Meghan Kuechenmeister talked about the importance of the student volunteers and what it means to her to work with her LBSA clients, “I can be having the worst day in the world and then I walk in to work and I forget it because the clients that I work with for so many years, they just bring you up, they lift you up. So that is incredibly rewarding in itself”. Tomorrow in our continuing series on Laura Baker Services Association, I’ll talk with Vickey Dilley and Randy and Lynn Miland, parents of adult children who are living at home. Their trials and triumphs and why community really does matter.
Faribault Fire collects 700 masks
Faribault Fire Chief Dustin Dienst reports that they collected just over 700 masks this weekend at the Faribault Fire Department. He’ll be working with their long-term care facilities to make sure they have the masks they need and then the rest will be placed into the Rice County donation management pool.
