Cherie Johnson, executive director of Goodhue County Education District, was present at the Kenyon-Wanamingo School Board meeting Sept. 23 to discuss the latest developments with the 5 Rivers Online program that the Education District provides.
Johnson reported that there will not be the amount of students they were expecting enrolled in the 5 Rivers Online program. The enrollment will lose about 300 students, affecting its budget and the school districts involved in the collaboration.
The 5 Rivers Online, 5RO, is a service provided by the Goodhue County Education District for students who do online learning. While the students do not attend school in the building, they are still considered the students of the school district they are affiliated with. All Kenyon-Wanamingo students who do online learning are considered students of Kenyon-Wanamingo and are treated as such.
How this affects the budgets is that the school districts involved in 5RO and their students generate money. For example, K-W students for the school year 2023-24 generated $154,743. At the end of the year, expenses are added up and the cost to K-W was $68,563. The difference was then passed onto the School Board, because of the enrollment of their students, for $86,179.
Attendance last year for 5RO was 332.
The largest involved school district, Red Wing, is not encouraging its students to enroll into 5RO for the upcoming school year, and because of that, there is a decline in students participating in 5RO; current enrollment is at 92.
This year, the money generated to K-W will be $85,737. They will be invoiced $63,655, and the amount put back into the school district will be $22,000.
Johnson added, “One of the impacts is totals have gone down. The other impact is that for most our districts the cost has gone up. So, before you were getting about 50% back. Now you are getting less than 50% back because our enrollment is down.”
A lively discussion about what happened and how it happened followed the announcement.
Johnson continued, “We did not realize this until enrollment this fall, and then we were informed that some of our districts were not going to be enrolling students this fall.”
School Board member James Jarvis asked, “What two districts or what districts left?”
Johnson responded, “They did not leave, but there was a change in legislation about two years ago that said that districts can do online schooling for any of your students.” This meant that the school district can design the curriculum for their students who are online learners and provide that online service.
GCED had already set that up with 5RO, and Red Wing was a school district that no longer wanted to participate in the program.
While Red Wing is pulling out of 5RO, its are still part of the GCED. Board member and K-W representative on GCED Board Marilyn Syverson commented, “When we all entered into the agreement, it is a free will agreement to be in 5RO. There is no accountability for coming out in the middle of the year or in April or whenever. A district could walk and leave at any time.”
Superintendent Beth Giese interjected, “So the question the board has for me is should we, second semester, take out our 12 kids and at least recoup some of this?”
After more discussion on this issue, the board agreed that the superintendent look further into this matter and come back with findings on how to best proceed.
Tax levy
Dawn Sandbulte, the business manager for the district, presented a 2025 tax levy increase of 2.68% at this time.
Sandbulte mentioned that this is consistent across the board. They will have one more reading and final vote on the tax levy in December.
The final numbers will be available before that, and with the current situation with 5RO, Sandbulte mentioned that she will see how that plays out with the numbers. The Truth in Taxation meeting will be during the board’s regular meeting on Dec. 9, 2024.
The next working session will be on Oct. 14, and the next regular meeting will be Oct. 28, both at middle/high school media center.
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