By Rich Larson, News Director
The Northfield School District has announced a plan to return students to in-person or hybrid learning by February 2nd. 
In a letter to District Families on Friday, Superintendent Dr. Matt Hillmann said the Return to Campus plan is based on the latest guidance from the Governor’s office that prioritizes in-person education for the youngest students, and incorporates the rolling start mandated by the state’s Safe Learning Plan.
All students will remain in distance learning until January 13, at the earliest. After two days for teachers to plan and prepare, and another for the observance of Martin Luther King Day, early childhood, pre-school, kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders will return to five-days-a-week on Tuesday, January 19.
Grades 3-5 will be in distance learning until January 26. Three days of teacher prep and workshops will follow, and five-days-per-week of in-person learning will begin on Monday, February 1st.
Distance learning will continue at the Northfield Middle School and Northfield High School until January 28th. Teachers will have Friday January 29th and Monday February 1st for preparation, and the hybrid learning plan put in place last fall will resume on Tuesday, February 2nd.
The plan also says that High School Winter Athletics will begin on January 4th with a phased in approach. Dr. Hillmann said in his letter that while this is the plan, it is subject to change with minimal notice due to the unpredictable nature of the Coronavirus and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Northfield Public School District’s Return to Campus plan can be found by clicking HERE.
Lippert and Draheim see good and bad from special session
Fresh from the latest and final special legislative session, both of Northfield’s legislators said they thought there were some good thing that happened at the session and some disappointments.
Representative Todd Lippert said that overall, he was pleased with the Covid-19 Relief Package passed during the session and signed into law on Wednesday by Governor Walz, but he wished it had included more help.
“There are two or three pieces that I really wish we would have passed. We needed more for housing assistance. There are many Minnesotans that are behind on their rent, mortgage and utilities, and are in a precarious position with housing. We couldn’t get Republicans to go along with us on that. Childcare centers are also in a difficult situation. They have more expenses for health to try to control Covid. And nursing facilities and long-term care centers are in very much the same sort of situation. We wanted to get more support out to those areas, and we weren’t able to do it. So that was a disappointment.”
Senator Rich Draheim was pleased that some aid was given to small businesses, especially those in the hospitality and service industries, but he also thinks that aid packages in general don’t really hit the mark they are supposed to.
“We try to do what we can with these aid packages, but they’re just a band aid. A lot of people don’t fit into the criteria that they’re drafted, because they are a compromise between the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office. So they have quite a few holes.”
Both Senator Draheim and Representative Lippert said that it is time for the Federal Government to come up with an aid package as well. The $242 million in small business aid will help, but the $900 million package that has been talked about on Capitol Hill over the last few days would add much needed help that the state is unable to provide.
Both men are also looking to the Regular Legislative Session which will begin on January 5th. Senator Draheim said he is working to modify the eviction moratorium to give landlords a degree of freedom within the rules, without ending the moratorium altogether.
“The eviction moratorium is one thing that I’ve been trying to work on. I’ve been hearing from a lot of landlords. There are a lot of landlords that thin they should have the right to evict people for assaults, throwing parties, selling drugs, etc., and unfortunately right now their hands are tied. And kind of related to that, if the federal government doesn’t act and get their budget in line, that moratorium would go away. We don’t need that, either. So we have to find a balance there.”
Representative Lippert, meanwhile, said that 2021 is a budget year, and that always brings work and opportunity.
“We’ll be focused on the budget, figuring out how we balance our budget and meet the needs of the State. There will be critical conversations across all areas of the State Legislature. We have significant needs in Minnesota, and we have resources. We need to address them, so we’ll be digging into those conversations in the next few weeks.”
Representative Lippert’s full conversation with Jeff Johnson can be heard HERE.
Senator Draheim’s full conversation with Jeff Johnson can be heard HERE.
Chamber of Commerce raffle was a big hit
And there was quite a bit of excitement on Bridge Square Friday afternoon as the Northfield Chamber of Commerce drew the winners in the Chamber Raffle. 
Chamber of Commerce President Lisa Peterson said that the idea for the raffle was born out of necessity
“This has been months in the making. With the pandemic, normally we have all kinds of in-person, community-wide events that help us raise money so that we can support our business community and make it as strong as possibly can be. Without these in-person events, we’ve had kind of a difficult time. So, we decided, ‘Let’s try to raffle off a car.’ It’s safe and we can do this in a socially distant way. It was a little bit slow at first, but it really picked up at the end. We sold 643 tickets in total.”
The Grand Prize, a 2020 Chevrolet Equinox, was won by Jean Noack of Northfield.
