Tuesday, November 12, the Community Education Advisory Board met at 12:00 p.m. at the District Office Board Room at Crookston High School. This meeting is one of four meetings held yearly, and the board started out by reviewing the current Mission Statement:
Crookston Community Education extends life-long learning opportunities for residents of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. It seeks to enhance the quality of life through shared experiences and enrichment opportunities.
The board agreed that their mission is unchanged.
This year, the Community Ed Advisory Board has a new director, Crookston High School Principal Matt Torgerson. We asked how it was that Torgerson became Director of Community Education. “Really, for the size that Crookston is, Minnesota requires that the district has a Community Ed Director that is licensed,” said Torgerson, “I do have that license, so actually, I just took over when Denise Oliver retired because I had the ability to do it and the willingness.”
Torgerson says that he and his family are transplants to Crookston and have been here for around nine years. He said that finding things to do when they moved to town wasn’t really easy. “The one thing that I noticed when I moved to the community was I had no idea what was going on; now, I could have done my due diligence and done some fact-finding, to find activities to take part in, but one thing I think we can do is better communicate with the community.”
Torgerson mentioned that he would like to see resources, classes, programs, and such listed and easy to find for everyone. “One of my goals is to try to find a little bit more of a centralized location or collaboration between some of the entities in town that do programming for youth and adults,” says Torgerson. “Just to try to make sure that everybody at least knows what’s going on so they can take advantage of those opportunities.”
The board, which consists of leaders and members of other organizations and businesses in Crookston, talked about programming around Crookston this past summer and what has been happening so far this fall. Some of the things that were touched on were RYLA and STEM at UMC, the Golden Links Door County trip, ECFE Early Childhood Screening, LEO and Builders Clubs, and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
We asked Gina Gunderson, ECFE Parent Educator, about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and its benefits. “The Dolly Parton Imagination Library has been in Crookston since around 2021,” says Gunderson. “It’s a book-giving program that mails free books to children ages zero to five in communities,” Gunderson says this program improves childhood literacy and creates opportunities for children to thrive. The program makes it accessible for local communities to communicate regularly with many children and families. Dolly created this program in 1996, and last she had heard, Gunderson said it had reached over 2 million children across the world.
Gunderson explained that we, as a community, are very fortunate to have funding for this program. “The United Way funds the program, they have for the past couple of years,” says Gunderson. “The Early Childhood Initiative has also supported it and community members in the past as well.” If you are not registered for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, Gunderson says it’s an easy process. “You can go to Imagination Library.com, its’ for children birth to age five, so they graduate out when they turn five,” says Gunderson. “They will receive a book each month.”
Census collection is not always easy for children from birth to five years old, and Gunderson explains that the Imagination Library helps her determine how many children are living in the Crookston School District. “When I log into their website, I can see who has signed up and approve that,” explains Gunderson. “Then we also use that with our ECFE Census Report,” Gunderson says there are 207 children that are currently registered for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, and 89 have graduated out, which again happens when they turn five years old.
The meeting was full of wonderful information and ideas, and Torgerson says he encourages the community to give input to the board. “If there is anyone out there who is interested in teaching a class through Community Ed, if you have a talent or a skill set that you think others in the Community might enjoy please reach out to myself and let’s set up a meeting to talk about it,” says Torgerson. “Our adult programming kind of went away during COVID, and we would really love to bring some of that back,” Torgerson says a goal of his is to get some programs and classes put together and in a way it can be distributed to the community so that everyone has an opportunity to get involved.
The next Community Ed Advisory Board Meeting will be on January 21, 2025.
