News from Sleepy Eye Schools Superintendent: Welcome back to school!

Superintendent John Cselovszki
Sleepy Eye Public School

Sleepy Eye Public School students returned to the school building on Monday, August 18, sharing all the great summer adventures with their friends. Yes, it is once again back-to- school. Kindergarten started with two days of parent-teacher meetings and their first day of school on August 20. On the high school side, 7th grad- ers reported Monday to go through their big transition day to the high school, and the rest of the 8-12 grad- ers reported to school on Tuesday.

Our enrollment numbers continue to be a concern for the school district. Our K-12 enrollment of 510 is the low- est since I started 16 years ago. This will also be the second year in the row that we have anticipated deficit spending. We have made reductions in the areas of math and special ed- ucation, and we anticipate saving money over our business office re- structuring: however, these cost-sav- ing measures will not be enough to offset the anticipated revenue short- fall. We will try our best to operate ef- ficiently, but if things don’t change in our enrollment and the anticipated state revenues don’t improve, we will be forced to ask for local support.
Over the summer, our custodial crew did a fine job getting the build- ing back in shape. We completed sev- eral big projects over the summer. We are very proud of how the track resurfacing turned out. The track looks awesome, and it should be good now for at least a decade. We also have fixed our issues with our fire alarm panels. Several of our rooms got new flooring, and we got the tennis court updated jointly with the city of Sleepy Eye. Great job building and grounds crew! Thanks for your hard work over the summer.

During the past legislative session, the long-term facilities maintenance bill was passed that allows school districts to use levy authority to fix roofs that are in dire shape. The board of educa- tion of Sleepy Eye passed a reso- lution at their August board meet- ing to pursue a $2.5 million roof improvement project under this new law. We will be able to fix four parts of the roof that have the most urgent need to be upgraded. The project will start after July of 2026.

During the summer board re- treat, the board reviewed our current strategic plan, analyzed various surveys and discussed the direction of our district. We re- viewed our high-stakes test results trends and the district’s curricu- lum and instruction plan.

We also would like to welcome all the new staff and students to our school. Thank you very much for choosing to attend and work in our district.

We plan on continuing transi- tioning our district to become the Sleepy Eye Storm by September 1, 2026.
In closing, I want to thank the Sleepy Eye community for the opportunity to serve your chil- dren and provide a well-rounded education opportunity for them. We have wonderful teachers on staff who will make your children excited about education. We are looking to having a great 2025-26 school year.