The Northfield School Board held a reception at the Northfield Golf Club last night honoring Chris Richardson for his MASA award as Minnesota’s 2012 Superintendent of the Year. See the Oct. 31, 2011 press release on the Northfield School District’s site for details on the honor.
High School teacher Kevin Dahle was the Master of Ceremonies and spiced things up throughout with his comedian routine, eg, "I’d like to thank the decorations committee for the wonderful country club theme" and "When the reception is over, please follow last in-first out protocol for your departure" and "The cake is sponsored by the MN legislature but you can only eat 60% of it now with the rest available…" Clever guy, that Kevin. Even Dave Neuger got into it: "Chris is a wonderful person, hard working, extremely talented, respected by… um… ah…. let’s see… help me out here, Chris, I’m having trouble reading your handwriting." None of those are exact quotes but close enough.
Unfortunately, I only had my crappy smartphone camera to use for photos and as you’ll see, it doesn’t do well indoors.
Kudos to Dr. Richardson. Northfield has a large population of really smart students. For example, we have much high numbers of Merit Scholars than average and our median ACT is one of the highest in the state. There are many AP classes to choose from. In a school system like this, it would be easy to cater mostly to this group of students. But Richardson hasn’t forgotten about the students who have a harder time in school. Here are a couple of links to programs that serve those students:
http://www.northfieldnews.com/content/teachers-parents-say-ninth-grade-academy-proving-its-worth
http://www.northfieldnews.com/content/torch-light-way-more-students
A Nfld News video clip from the festivities.
Thanks for posting that, Curt.
Props also to Richardson and staff for their sponsorship of our two fine charter schools, Prairie Creek and ARTech. It was no mean feat to get that in place when the legislature revise the rules last year.