Bergstrom Updates On End of School Year, District's Summer Plans

SAUK RAPIDS (WJON News) -- Schools across the state are counting down the final days of this school year.

Sauk Rapids-Rice Superintendent Brad Bergstrom says they have the graduation ceremony set for Tuesday, May 28th at 7:00 p.m. at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center for the class of 2024.

They started their career at the high school at the beginning of the pandemic, so they have scene a lot of uniqueness in their last four years of high school.

The last school day for students at Sauk Rapids-Rice is Thursday, May 30th and the last day for staff is Friday, May 31st.

Some changes are coming to the summer school program at Sauk Rapids-Rice. Bergstrom says summer school is scheduled to start on Tuesday, June 4th.

Dealing with academic issues, it might be social emotional issues, or it might be some combination of the two. We run normally for grades K-8. At the high school level, it is more of a credit recovery.

Bergstrom says there are no changes to the high school program. But, they will not be offering a middle school program this summer, due to a lack of interest in the past.

The elementary program will run two weeks in June from the 4th through the 14th and also two weeks in August from the 5th through the 17th. Bergstrom says by moving two weeks of summer school to August it will help the students get ready for the new school year.

This will be another summer of major parking lot work at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. Bergstrom says the district is planning to give weekly progress updates.

We've created on our website a construction update link. We'll do weekly updates in terms of where can people come in and where can people park.

Bergstrom says this is the third summer that they've worked on a section of the parking lot at the high school, which has been there for over 20 years now.

Another big project is a new playground being installed at Rice Elementary. The current playground is about 28 years old. The new playground will be similar to the one the district has at Pleasantview Elementary.

The Sauk Rapids-Rice School District wants to hear from the community. Their second annual district-wide communication survey is now available. Bergstrom says the survey isn't about how individual schools in the district are doing.

We can reach out and have pretty good access to parents and guardians, and we have pretty good access to staff, via emails. Where we struggle is trying to get feedback from our community, maybe those who don't have children attending one of our schools.

Bergstrom says residents of the district can fill out the survey online with a link on the district's website. There will also be a paper copy inserted into this Saturday's edition of the Sauk Rapids Herold.