Back to School: It's a New Year for Lakeville Schools

On Tuesday, September 6, more than 11,000 students will return to classrooms in the Lakeville Area Public Schools. New backpacks will be filled with as-yet unmarked notebooks, and creases will yet to have been formed in new clothes on toddlers and teens. Kindergarteners will have to wait until Wednesday to begin their educational ascension through the ranks, but for the thousands of returning students, they and parents might notice a few new things in the upcoming school year.  

The most obvious newcomer to the district is . Having guided the Merrill, WI schools for the past few years with an emphasis on technology and communication, Snyder takes over the reins of a Lakeville district coming off a troubling 2010-2011 school year that many district leaders are eager to put behind them.

Snyder promises to utilize her extensive technology background to help propel the district forward, and her emphasis on communication should go a long ways toward rebuilding any trust that may have been lost between the district and community during a difficult last year.

An example of those new communication efforts combined with technology is a new program designed to reach a greater number of parents in the district on a regular basis.

“One thing that’s new this year will be the way we communicate electronically with parents,” says communications coordinator Linda Swanson. “We have really dedicated ourselves to improving our communications with parents.”

Swanson says the new program pulls contact information from the parent portals and sends out targeted and timely updates to parents’ email accounts regarding upcoming events and activities such as testing, college visits, concerts, programs and other happenings. Swanson says the new program will allow the district to reach approximately 80-percent of parents on a regular basis versus the approximately 30-percent they were able to communicate with regularly last year.

“It’s a much easier way to communicate with parents,” says Swanson. “It will give parents a much better idea of what’s going on in our buildings.”

Mark Klett, the district’s director of business services, says there are no major operational changes in the coming year, but parents and students will notice the absence of some programs and higher fees for some activities.

“Those changes were decided as part of the budget adjustment process,” said Klett adding that the athletic directors and other administrators were handling those changes in fees as needed.

Klett also pointed out that moved their start times back. OLE students’ school day will now begin at 9:25 a.m. instead of 8:50 a.m.

Another new, although temporary change, is that a number of including the Cougars’ opening football game against Eagan tonight at 7 p.m.

Beyond those few changes, though, it is predominantly business as usual for the district. But for how long is yet to be seen.

“We do have a new superintendent,” said Swanson. “So that changes all of the rules.”