Good morning. It feels like fall as many students begin their school year. Cloudy with showers favoring southern Twin Cities during midday hours. High 55. Wind NE 5-15 mph.
Rachel Bachman’s first grade classroom looks a lot different this year. Desks once arranged closely for group work now sit far apart and facing front. There are fewer desks, too, since class sizes must be smaller in the COVID-19 era. “We’ll do a lot of the community-building activities built into the first weeks so that kids feel comfortable and have their voice heard and are still able to collaborate with each other,” said Bachman. “It’ll just be at a distance.” Thousands of other teachers and students across Minnesota will find similar changes and new norms when they return to school buildings Tuesday for the first time since the spring, when the state suspended in-person learning as the pandemic took off. It promises to be a first day of school like no other. More from MPR News reporter Riham Feshir. Latest on COVID-19 in MN: Stay vigilant as students return to school, officials urge State health officials on Monday reported 638 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota, bringing the total number of cases above 81,000 since the pandemic began. The figures come as state officials warn Minnesotans to keep up their guard against the virus as students return to school.
MN school districts say they want to fill classrooms with talented teachers of color; then they lay them off Minnesota school districts struggle to retain teachers of color. One reason why: The last-in-first-out policy keeps causing layoffs of young, diverse educators. (Sahan Journal)
Minnesota shipwreck hunters locate long-sought Lake Michigan wreck More than a century ago, the Pere Marquette 18 started taking on water while crossing Lake Michigan, and jettisoned its cargo of rail cars into the lake in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. It sank with the loss of more than two dozen lives and the wreck site had eluded searchers for decades — until two Minnesotans found it this summer. The rest of the story from MPR News' Andrew Krueger
-- Michael Olson, MPR News @publicmic | 