Doors Close on Elgin-Millville, Plainview Schools

By Dawn Schuett, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.

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ELGIN — With the year-end excitement of class pictures, field trips and school picnics, teachers and students in the Elgin-Millville and Plainview school districts have barely had time to reflect on the milestone of today, the last day of classes for both districts before consolidation.

“We don’t talk about it much,” Debra Sauke, who has taught sixth grade at Elgin-Millville Elementary School for most of her 25 years there, said this morning.

Although Sauke will continue to teach the same grade at the same building for the Plainview-Elgin-Millville School District next fall, she said it is sad to see other teachers packing up their classrooms to prepare for a move.

Tina Keilholtz has taught second grade in the same classroom at E-M for 17 years. Next year, she’ll be teaching second graders at what is now Plainview Elementary School. She embraces the changes ahead, Keilholtz said, but it’s a big transition.

“I’m kind of like the kids — I’m nervous about it,” she said.

Taylor Aakre, 12, a sixth-grader at E-M, agreed with her friends who said they looked forward to meeting more kids and having more choices when it comes to classes and activities.

“We’re going to miss it (Elgin-Millville) but I think we’re all excited about how it’s going to be,” Taylor said.

Voters approved the consolidation in December. Since then, the combined school board has met monthly to make decisions about teacher assignments, athletic facilities, food service and countless other matters.

The process has gone well, said Ross Mattke, interim superintendent of E-M and principal of its elementary school, “but it’s just an overwhelming task.”

“There’s no template on how to do this,” said Mattke who will serve as the principal for fourth through sixth grades for the consolidated district.

Eric Bartleson, who became interim superintendent of the Plainview School District in July, will become superintendent of the consolidated district as of July 1.

“It’s always tough to make these kinds of decisions but overall, I think people have tried to focus on why we did this,” Bartleson said, and that was to provide better opportunities to students in all three communities.

Who’s going where

— Kindergarten through third graders — Plainview Elementary School.

— Fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders — Elgin-Millville Elementary School.

— Seventh- and eighth-graders — Elgin-Millville High School.

— Nin-th through 12th-graders — Plainview High School.

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