By Bruce Karnick

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The Hastings Area Rotary Club is more than just a networking group. It is a group made up of folks from area businesses that work in and for the community of Hastings. Rotary meets each Thursday morning for an hour for a variety of things. Each week, there is a guest speaker. Usually, it is someone in the community that has made some kind of positive impact on others in the community, big or small. January 21st, Superintendent Dr. Robert McDowell spent his Thursday morning introducing himself to the Hastings Area Rotary Club and going over information about Hastings Public Schools.

McDowell grew up in another Minnesota river town, Winona, so this kind of area is not new to him. After he gave a brief introduction, he jumped right in. The Hastings Area School District makes up roughly 170 square miles total and has students from three different counties; Dakota, Washington and Goodhue.

In Hastings, there are three elementary schools that serve kindergarten through fourth grade; Kennedy, Pinecrest and McAuliffe. Tilden is the districts pre-school and senior center, then there is the Middle School and High School. In total, there are 4,100 students aged K-12. The year to year level hovers right around the 1000-1500 for each of the three levels. The trajectory is the concerning part, as graduating students are being replaced at about 70%, which is common for towns like Hastings around the Twin Cities.

The demographics of Hastings is changing, too.

“Our largest growth is in our Hispanic and Latino population, followed by our Black and African American population,” McDowell said.

“We’re increasing in the amount of families and students where English is not their primary language. So, that creates a communication piece that we have to pay attention to,” McDowell explained.

McDowell tries to look at the school district from all angles. Looking at it as a business or organization, he says, “we are about a $58 million organization.”

He then went on to remind people the differences between bonds and levies. A bond can be used only for buildings, levies are for everything else. Hastings has one bond that runs through 2023 and two levies, one that also expires in 2023 and one that goes to 2027.

The district employs 642 staff members, of which are split roughly in half between those that are licensed and support staff. The school district is the third largest employer in Hastings behind Dakota County and Allina.

The majority of the revenue for the district actually comes from state aid. In fact, 74% of it does. Only 15-16% of the schools revenue comes from the property taxes in the Hastings area.

McDowell expanded on that.

“I think it’s important to remind people that we’re a human resources business, if you will. And so, we sit at about 81% of our budget that gets allocated just to pay the salaries and benefits of all of our staff. And so it leaves under 20% of that 58 million to go to everything else, like our purchase services, our curriculum, all that kind of stuff.

See Learning during COVID Page 10 Learning during COVID

From Page 1 It’s really important that back to the levies and the referendums that, and the state aids that we have that stuff because it’s just like everywhere, it’s not cheap to keep teachers and staff and all that in our buildings to help support our kids.”

There are three different learning models: Full distance, hybrid and full in person. The model in use is based on the Department of Health and CDC guidelines. Hastings also has a full Virtual Academy that currently has 650 students enrolled, those students are always full time virtual by choice.

Student athletics are governed by the Minnesota State High School League, which is why sports may be allowed even when the school is in a full distance learning model.

The plan as of Thursday was, K-2 should be in person by the time the paper hits the news stand. Third grade to fifth in hybrid by February First and the remaining student’s hybrid by mid-February. Of course, that can change.

If you are interested in learning more about Rotary, shoot Bruce an email. [email protected] news. Thank you to Dr. Robert McDowell for speaking at Rotary and giving us a peek at things ‘under the hood’.