In place of a group learning environment, desks were spaced out in this Park Elementary classroom to keep students as far apart as possible in a situation where all students are in school. During a hybrid learning model, students can be placed at every other desk to be 6 feet apart.
Plenty could change by the time school starts Aug. 31, and even after as schools react to state mandates regarding the delivery of education in the face of COVID-19. But regardless of what happens, administrators and teachers at Hutchinson Public Schools must have safe buildings ready for students if and when they arrive.
A visit to a Park Elementary classroom Aug. 18 revealed the kinds of changes in store this year, on top of a mandated mask policy. Gone are collaborative spaces, areas where students gather and shared classroom materials. Students will keep their items in an individual space or desk. Except for second- and third-graders, students are asked to bring their own digital devices to class.
Rooms are also arranged with traditional desks spaced apart from back to front to allow for as much social distancing as possible, but administrators admit the recommended 6 feet is impossible with full in-person learning, and it is not required under Minnesota Department of Education guidelines.
"We can't have 24 kids in a classroom and be 6 feet apart," said Park Elementary Principal Dan Olberg. "But if we move them to a hybrid (learning model) ... the idea is to have them 6 feet apart no matter where they are."
Park Elementary Principal Dan Olberg shows a carpet that has been rolled up in a classroom to be taken to storage. The carpets were used for group activities and as a place for teachers to engage with students, but they don’t fit into a social distancing environment. Other items are also being removed from classrooms to make more room to spread out desks, and to make sanitizing easier.
In hybrid learning, half of the student population would attend school while the other half uses distance learning. The two groups would swap every other day, so a classroom that normally hosts 24 students would be reduced to 12 students.
"One of the hardest things for teachers is to roll up our carpet time," Olberg said. "Until we get a handle on this (pandemic) ... some of these things are being put in storage."
Carpet time was used for group learning or reading time, and it allowed for teachers to make close, visual contact with students. The removal of the carpets, as well as other large items in classrooms, will help with social distancing, but also make it easier for custodians to carry out a daily sanitizing routine for each building. These kinds of adjustments to the regular school day are being made across the school district to follow state guidelines.
SCHOOL LUNCH
Several changes are also being made across the district to practice social distancing during lunch.
Before entering the line — which will be marked to keep people 6 feet apart — students must use hand sanitizer. They will talk to kitchen staff through a sneeze guard. Staff will hand the disposable tray from person to person to add food, but the student will not touch it until the end. Students will, however, retrieve their own water or milk. Instead of having students use a keypad to enter a code for payment, staff will have a sheet of barcodes to scan, with a code for each name.
Much like in classrooms, keeping students 6 feet apart during lunch for complete in-person learning is a challenge. The state doesn't require that amount of separation, but schools are trying to meet it as much as possible by providing additional places for students to eat lunch. At Park Elementary, the multi-purpose theater down the hall from the lunch room will serve as one such space for 30 students.
More spaces are being opened up to use as additional lunch rooms to help with social distancing.
"We're hoping to get some plexiglass to put on some of these tables," Olberg said.
At Park Elementary's eight-person tables, the plan is to have a student at every other seat if there is complete in-person learning. The tables will be marked with green dots to show students where to sit. If there is hybrid learning, there will be two students per table with a plastic bag over the available seats.
"It'll be similar at other buildings," said Michael Scott, director of teaching and learning. "The middle school is also starting to put markers to be able to use the auditorium for lunch to space out students. So every building is being consistent with making sure they're spacing students out."
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Hutchinson Public Schools are also preparing for a series of other adjustments to the school day to address regular wants and needs that may not be business as usual.
Students will be asked to bring their own water bottles, but if the fountain must be used there will be hand sanitizer there as well. Students will also sanitize before and after recess and lunch. These kinds of practices will be consistent from building to building, with hand sanitizer stations, reminders for handwashing and proper hygiene.
One challenge schools face is how to maintain social distancing as students arrive and pass through the hallways together. Schools have asked students to arrive during a specific window of time, and go straight to classrooms so they are not lingering around the building or gathering. Students can then be sent to their lockers in a controlled fashion. In the hallways, students will also notice posters and bulletins repeating information educators will impress upon them regarding hygiene practices and social distancing. During transitions between class periods, students will be instructed to follow arrows on the floor to guide them along the paths they should take.
"A lot of parents are worried about the amount of time kids are wearing their masks," Olberg said. "They don't need to wear their mask for eating lunch. Recess, they can take it off outside when they're playing. (Physical education), when they're doing any kind of physical exertion they can take their mask off for that. The teachers have also been planning on how to do mask breaks outside."
Teachers may also make use of outdoor learning spaces as weather permits. Band, choir and music classes can make use of auditoriums and outdoor options to spread out. Students will be able to use school libraries if they sanitize their hands before and after. Books returned to libraries will be quarantined before returning to the shelf.
"We don't want to eliminate that extremely important part of our school," Olberg said.
Emma Friauf of Glencoe, a McLeod County dairy princess and one of 10 finalists for Princess Kay of the Milky Way, poses with Gerry Kulzer in front of her butter sculpture.
Gerry Kulzer sculpts Meeker County dairy princess Maggie Meyer of Grove City. Kulzer, a Litchfield resident said one of the things he enjoyed the most about becoming the Midwest Dairy butter sculptor this year was talking with the 10 young women who serve as ambassadors for the state’s dairy industry.
Gerry Kulzer admits he might not have been much fun as a Minnesota State Fair-goer.
While family and friends were eager to wander the fairgrounds and sample all those fair foodstuffs, visit the Midway and see all the other sights, Kulzer, an art teacher and sculptor, wanted to hang out in one building.
All day, if he could get away with it.
“Back in the ’90s, I would come in here,” Kulzer said, looking around a nearly deserted Dairy Building on a mid-August afternoon. It’s in that building, of course, where butter carving takes place. For 48 years, sculptor Linda Christensen spent 10 days in a cooler, carving the likenesses of the state’s dairy princesses out of 90-pound blocks of butter.
And as far as Kulzer was concerned, that was THE attraction of the Minnesota State Fair. Postpone the Pronto Pups. Mothball the Midway. Suspend the sights.
Butter sculpting was where it was at.
“I’ve told this story to a few people,” Kulzer explained. “You didn’t — before the internet — you didn’t see people work unless you visited their studio and spent the day with them.
“And how many artists would open up a studio and say, ‘Oh yeah, come on in,’” he said “So, it was fascinating to come here to the State Fair, and see a sculptor make things. You’d never experience that anywhere else. So it was interesting and fascinating to see how she worked that, that block into a person’s face.”
That fascination eventually made Kulzer himself the attraction.
On Saturday, the Litchfield resident wrapped up 10 days of sculpting in the same cooler-studio he once watched Christensen perform her craft. He has become the heir to Christensen’s unique sculpting legacy.
It was a little different this year, of course. With the State Fair canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, few people — outside of families of the 10 dairy princesses and a seemingly endless string of media — saw Kulzer at work. But by the end of his 10-day experience, he sounded thrilled.
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Kulzer said. “I’m playing with butter, which is like clay. And I’m also getting to talk with these 10 girls … learning the ins and outs of the dairy industry. It was just a fun 10 days, really.”
Kulzer wound up with the best job he ever had after spending the past two years as Christensen’s apprentice. It was a door that opened to him, at least in part, because of those days spent watching Christensen carve butter busts of the dairy princesses back in the 1990s.
After one of those State Fair visits, he checked out the Midwest Dairy Association’s website and sent a tentative email from its “contact us” tab.
“I just said, ‘Hey, if Linda ever wants to quit or retire, kind of put my name in there. I’m sort of interested,’” Kulzer recalled. “Nothing happened.”
At least that’s what it seemed. And then, one day a few years ago, he received a Facebook message from Melissa Tangen, a former dairy princess and current dairy princess coordinator for Meeker County American Dairy Association, who happened to be a former student of Kulzer’s when he taught art at Litchfield High School.
“She said, ‘Hey, they’re thinking, Midwest Dairy, is thinking about a transition plan for when Linda retires, would you be interested?’” Kulzer said. “I said, ‘Yeah!”
He was called in to audition two years ago and showed enough talent to be asked back to work with Christensen behind the scenes during last year’s State Fair.
“I got to carve a block with her,” Kulzer said. “She carved one side, I carved the other side. And she showed me how she would do it, so that I could kind of try to mimic it on my side. And surprisingly, it turned out to be a coherent sculpture.”
Kulzer, 51, has taught art to students from kindergarten through 12th grade over the past 27 years in the Litchfield, ACGC school districts, and at Holy Trinity in Winsted. This fall, he’ll start on a 28th year of teaching, now in the Sauk-Rapids Rice district, teaching classes in computer graphics and photography for juniors and seniors.
He also has his own sculpture business, Kulzer Design Studios, and has worked for Brodin Studios.
Despite that resume, Kulzer says he had no problem becoming a student again.
“Linda would say, ‘OK, well, look at the eye here. Here’s how I would do that,’” Kulzer said. “And she would tell me, ‘Well, try this. Try that.’ So, she was very helpful, trying to, you know, get me up to speed with how to work that butter, so that it was reasonably fast and reasonably accurate.”
During the State Fair in 2018, Kulzer worked in a cooler in the back of the dairy barn, sculpting a dairy association staff member as a trial for a little more than eight hours.
“I didn’t consider (the sculpture) complete, but my hands were cramping up so bad, I had to physically open my fingers, because they were so cramped up with the cold and pressing the butter so hard,” Kulzer said. “The next year, I think it was probably eight hours, maybe a little less, because Linda was helping and we were playing off each other.”
It was after last year’s State Fair that Kulzer received a formal offer to become the next butter sculptor, as part of a transition plan that would see Christensen step away after 50 years of carving butter heads.
The plan was for Christensen, a California resident, to continue to do the bulk of the sculpting during this year’s fair, with Kulzer doing “three or four.”
“And then the pandemic hits,” Kulzer said “We were wondering how things would work. In June, Linda finally made the decision of saying, ‘OK, I’m not comfortable coming.’”
Midwest Dairy officials turned to Kulzer, and he agreed to take on the mantle a little sooner than anticipated — with no small amount of trepidation.
“It’ll be scary, but I’ll try my best and see what happens,” Kulzer told Midwest Dairy organizers.
In a nod to Christensen’s nearly half-century role as butter sculptor — and to the symmetry the two had displayed in their joint carving a year earlier — Midwest Dairy arranged to have Christensen join Kulzer via Zoom for the first sculpture this year, of Princess Kay of the Milky Way Brenna Connelly of Byron. Kulzer wore a video camera strapped to his head that allowed Christensen to see things as he saw them.
“That was nice to have her in there (in the carving booth) the first day with Princess Kay,” Kulzer said. “She gave me some hints of what I should do, and she could see things in the camera that I was kind of not noticing.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Kulzer said of sculpting. “But I appreciate she has been doing it for 49 years. So anyone with that much experience, you’ve got to just enjoy and learn from their experience. She’s such a wonderful person. To have her working with me, I appreciate that.”
Christensen will be back at the State Fair next year, to carve in person — assuming an end to coronavirus pandemic restrictions by then. But after that first day of carving this year, Kulzer was on his own to carve this year’s other nine dairy princesses.
And though he leaves no doubt that he enjoyed the experience, it also was an arduous task at times. Among the most challenging aspects, Kulzer said, was sculpting against the clock, as each bust has to be completed in a day.
“Normally, if I accept a commission, I want two weeks to work on it,” Kulzer said. “So doing this in a day is really different.”
His response to the tight timeline was a start fast “and just hack, hack, hack, hack away at” the 90-pound block of butter, trying to establish the basic form early in the day and leave more time for details later.
Most days, he said, he reached a point by early afternoon that his few visitors and dairy princess subject commented that the work looked near completion.
“That’s a good feeling; then I know I could leave it and people would still be satisfied,” Kulzer said. “But, you know, I could work on this for another three days, three eight-hour days, before I’d be satisfied with it, changing things here and there.”
The logistics of sculpting dairy princesses won’t allow for that kind of perfectionism, of course. Each sculpture must be done in one day.
Challenging, yes. But also rewarding for an artist like Kulzer who enjoys the unique aspects of sculpting people.
“Artists tend to work in a series. You’ll see a painter, and they’ll do landscapes … that look similar,” Kulzer said. “I can’t. Once I do something once, I don’t want to do it again, except for portraits of people, because every person’s face is a little different. So it’s like doing something totally new again.”
And just as the art is different, so is the subject’s story, as Kulzer learned from the conversations he had with the 10 princesses inside the carving booth.
“Each girl comes from a different farm and they do things differently,” Kulzer said. “It was interesting. I just feel honored to be a part of Midwest Dairy and to be able to be kind of an ambassador, I guess, like the princesses. It’s a great organization and it does great things for farmers who are part of it, and for all of us, really.”
He looks forward to having many more conversations in coming years — with dairy princesses, the media and visitors to the Dairy Building to watch him work. And he expects what he learned in his first year of butter sculpting will help him become even better next year.
“The last one today, everything flowed,” Kulzer said Saturday evening. “I got done early, and everything went well. Each one will get a little better.
“I just really enjoyed myself this year,” he added. “It’s an honor really. It’s amazing. When you’re having fun doing your job, that’s when you do it well. That’s what the last 10 days was for me. It was the best job I’ve ever had.”
Free COVID-19 testing was offered to residents of McLeod County and neighboring counties Aug. 20 in an effort to gather data on the spread of the virus in the community. A reported 791 people were tested.
A McLeod County resident has died due to COVID-19, marking the first local death confirmed by the Minnesota Department of Health.
McLeod County Public Health received confirmation of the death Tuesday. According to MDH, the person was age 90-99 and was not living in a congregate care setting. The person had no known contacts with a positive case.
“Words cannot express the heartache that our community is feeling as we suffer the first loss of life to COVID-19,” said Joe Nagel, McLeod County Board Chair. “I want to extend my sympathy, the sympathy of the County Board and the entire McLeod County family to the family and friends of the victim who lost their battle with this terrible virus.”
NOT ALL NEW CASES FROM SENECA
As of Aug. 24, the county has had 300 confirmed cases ranging from infancy to age 94. As of Aug. 20, 211 patients had reached a point where they no longer required isolation.
Between Aug. 13 and Aug. 20, McLeod County saw 58 new cases confirmed. Meghan Mohs, McLeod County Health and Human Services interim director, told McLeod County Board members during an Aug. 18 meeting that two county residents were hospitalized in the Twin Cities.
“We are seeing a spike in cases, so that’s the reality,” she said.
Reports of an outbreak among seasonal workers at Seneca have caught the attention of county residents and state media. Mohs said Seneca is having an issue, but it doesn’t account for all of the case growth in the county. As of Monday, the state has reported 51 confirmed cases at Seneca across three counties, with nine more suspected cases.
“We know on the ground here that we have more cases as a county,” Mohs said. “We’re well over 300 already based on our informal count, and Seneca certainly has more than 51.”
Of 32 new positive cases reported Aug. 17, Seneca accounted for half.
“The reality is half of our caseload in the county is not from Seneca,” Mohs said. “I think we’ve been a little bit lax as a community around (social distancing), and we are now seeing that in terms of our caseload growth.”
In the MDH’s Aug. 20 update, the county’s latest 14-day case rate per 10,000 residents between July 26 and Aug. 8 was 24.84, the second highest in the state behind Red Lake County. At that rate, state guidelines call for hybrid learning for elementary, middle school and high school students in McLeod County.
On Aug. 20, in an effort to gain insight into the degree of spread in the McLeod County area, the state and county conducted free, mass testing in Glencoe for residents of the county and neighboring counties. According to Mohs, 791 people were tested in seven hours.
In place of a group learning environment, desks were spaced out in this Park Elementary classroom to keep students as far apart as possible in a situation where all students are in school. During a hybrid learning model, students can be placed at every other desk to be 6 feet apart.
Daron VanderHeiden
Hutchinson Public Schools are on a trajectory to start the year in a hybrid learning model based on the latest 14-day rate of COVID-19 cases in McLeod County.
“That is what I recommend we plan for,” Superintendent Daron VanderHeiden told the School Board Monday evening.
Based on data from July 12-25, the School Board set in-person learning as the base learning model for the 2020-21 school year, but knew it was possible for the model to change based on state mandates. At that time, McLeod County had 5.02 COVID-19 cases per 10,000 residents. For the week of July 19 to Aug. 1, that number rose to 14.52 cases. The most recent number from July 26 to Aug. 8 is 24.84 cases. McLeod County Public Health has also advised a hybrid model.
VanderHeiden has the ability to adjust the model with confirmation from the board chair. However, decisions must ultimately be approved by the state. Schools may request exceptions, but VanderHeiden said schools have been told that models less restrictive than state guidelines recommended won’t be approved, but more restrictive models may be.
In hybrid learning, half of the student population would attend school while the other half uses distance learning. The two groups would swap every other day. In Hutchinson, students are divided into Group A and Group B. Group A would attend school in person Mondays and Wednesdays, while Group B would attend in person Tuesday and Thursday. The two groups would trade off every other Friday.
Unofficial local data the school has been tracking suggests the county could spike up to 30 cases per 10,000 residents in a week, which would require schools to have secondary students practice complete distance learning, while elementary schools remain in hybrid learning. But as has been the case with many school decisions in the face of state mandates, only time will tell. The results of more than 700 recent COVID-19 tests conducted in Glencoe this past week were not available as of the meeting Monday evening.
Following the spike, VanderHeiden said, it seems cases may begin to slowly drop again.
“What we are seeing in Hutchinson is very reassuring,” said Board Member Brian Pollmann, chief medical officer at Hutchinson Health.
If cases begin to decline in the county, VanderHeiden said, the school likely won’t change to less restrictive models each week as the state allows it, but wait to make one change when the situation stabilizes.
During a hybrid learning model, students at home will still be required to be available for distance learning instruction that will be made available by each teacher. More information on the school’s learning models, and safety practices, can be found at isd423.org/school-closure-resources.
