ENG 2025-26 Family Update No.2

⏰ Reading time: six minutes, 23 seconds

Photo: Students participate in a class activity during Bridges to Kindergarten.

While challenging to ponder on a warm August day, Minnesota’s winter will make yet another encore appearance.

The district will use e-Learning days again in 2025-26. The purpose of e-Learning days is to maintain instructional momentum when Minnesota winter weather disrupts the ability to provide in-person instruction rather than extend the school year later into June.

The first full school day cancellation due to winter weather will not be replaced with an e-Learning day. The second and subsequent school closures will be replaced with e-Learning days.

» You can review this year’s plan here.

If a parent does not wish to have their student participate in an e-Learning day, they have that option. Please call the attendance line at your school and let them know. That absence will be excused.

There will not be a practice e-Learning day in 2025-26 like there was in 2024-25.

» You can learn more about how the district handles weather-related disruptions and school closings here. This page includes information about how we address disruptions caused by winter weather, extreme heat, and air quality issues.

At its July meeting, the school board approved the 2025-26 Student Citizenship Handbook. This handbook governs the district’s approach to student discipline.

Please review the document and discuss it with your students. Even discipline is part of the school learning experience.

Please also specifically discuss the profound impact that threats of violence have on our school. While threatening statements or social media posts are often made impulsively, they have a chilling effect on the perception of school safety. The district investigates all threats. Please discuss with your students how important it is not to make threatening statements or social media posts. If you learn of a threat, please notify your school principal promptly or use the community’s Tip 411 system.

Based on feedback from staff and families, we are adding hours for evening parent-teacher conferences in 2025-26. While you should review the information from your student(s) schools, here is a list of the evening parent-teacher conference dates for 2025-26. Please check your weekly school newsletter for additional details and/or clarifications.

The Northfield School District seeks members of our community to serve on advisory committees. The district uses advisory committees to get input from the community about educational and operational topics. We want your perspective! Please consider expressing an interest in one of our committees.

» A description of each committee and its meeting dates are included in this interest form.

The interest form will be available until Sept. 19.

There will be some short-term leadership changes at Bridgewater Elementary School. Principal Nancy Antoine is taking some leave time to support her husband, Doug, who is undergoing cancer treatment.

During Mrs. Antoine’s leave, Hope Langston will serve as the interim principal, and Adam Danielson will be the interim associate principal.

You can read the message the district sent to Bridgewater families about the change here.

The Minnesota Department of Education has launched the Families READ Online Toolkit, a new toolkit designed by educators to help families support their children’s reading skills at home. It provides families and caregivers with age-specific information and simple activities in five core reading skills - phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension - and represents Minnesota’s continued commitment to expand literacy support. Copies of free literacy games will also be available for visitors at the MDE booth in the Education Building at the Minnesota State Fair.

The district partners with KYMN radio to produce the “Doing Good Things for Kids” podcast. During the year, Superintendent Hillmann will interview members of our school community who demonstrate high performance.

In July, Superintendent Hillmann interviewed new Northfield High School Principal Chris Dibble about his origins, his vision for the future of NHS and more. You can listen to the podcast here.

KYMN radio’s Trek Through Time program recently highlighted the history of Northfield High School’s Rock n’ Roll Revival. It featured Ray Coudret and Sheri Setchell. You can listen here.

The episode highlights the Northfield History Center’s exhibit on the same topic. It is exciting to see the ongoing pride the community has for its schools and this one-of-a-kind program!

• Board packets, table files, and meeting videos are located on our website.
• You can listen to Superintendent Hillmann’s update on KYMN radio.

The Northfield School District does not discriminate on the basis of sex and prohibits sex discrimination in any education program or activity that it operates, as required by Title IX, including in employment. You can learn more at: https://northfieldschools.org/about/departments/human-resources/ under the Title IX tab.