By Teri Knight, News Director
The Rice County Fair has been cancelled. Commissioner Galen Malecha said the Fair organization looked at options including the possibility of a one day fair, a two day fair without a Midway or certain events missing from the line-up. The majority of all county fairs have cancelled. As to whether the Defeat of Jesse James Days will be cancelled? As the General Chair of DJJD, he said the committee has been talking with Public Health and Northfield Public Safety adding that the DJJD Committee will meet next Tuesday and will make a decision on the celebration, “collectively as a Committee”. Options have been discussed with committee members being asked to look at alternate ways to safely run their specific events. Malecha said they will put out a press release next Tuesday after the meeting.
County using phone/zoom to deliver some services
Day to day work continues within Rice County. Malecha said the County is all about services to the community. Adding the layer of Covid-19 and delivering those services becomes something different. Malecha said in order to keep those services going they’ve had to start making appointments (no walk-up) and meeting with them, or meeting via telephone or zoom. He said staff has really stepped up their game so that people don’t fall through the cracks. County leaders are meeting weekly or more to stay on top of Executive Orders and implementation of services, coordinating with local governments and agencies.
Grading system altered for 4th quarter
In barely a couple of weeks, school districts were called on to go to long distance learning. While overall it seems that most students are doing okay, Northfield Schools Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said they have modified how they’re grading. In Elementary grades they are graded from one to four, with four the highest grade. This year, Hillmann said every teacher is going to video conference or by phone with every family next week and will give them an end of the year distance learning update. They’ll share data on how often their children engaged in online learning. At the Middle School, they went to a Pass/Fail system while at the high school, Hillmann said, “if a student earned an A or a B, they will get an A or a B on their report card and that will be calculated as part of their grade point average. If they got what would have been traditionally a C or a D, that will go on as a Pass and anything that was traditionally been an F, that will go on the report card as an F”. Hillmann said they are modifying the Pass/Fail grades by putting a ‘C’ in front, indicating Covid. Additionally, the School Board approved lowering the passing rate from 60% to 50%. He said, “that’s just to honor that we have kids all through the community in different circumstances and while we’ve had a high level of engagement during this time, we also know that we want to make sure that this pandemic does not adversely impact a students progress toward graduation”. These modifications are solely for the fourth quarter. If the students did 50% of the work, attended 50% of the zoom meetings, they will pass. The 2020 virtual graduation ceremony scheduled for 2pm on Sunday will air on KYMN.
Library opens to patrons – masks required
The Northfield Public Library opened yesterday. Administrator Martig noted that they are following all State guidelines including all employees will wear masks and patrons are also required to wear masks at the Library. They have a supply of masks for those who don’t have one. Staff has removed a lot of the furniture, placing it in storage. There won’t be a lot of in-person programming. Some of the meeting rooms are currently being used as offices for city employees for social distancing. The computer stations have been reduced from 20 to 6, they are being cleaned after each use. They have also reduced the hours allowed to use the computer from 3 to 2.
Due to warranty work in Northfield, the parking lane on the northside of Seventh Street from Division Street to Washington Street will be closed through June 5th.
