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After recent declines, the number of home-schooled students in the Ely School Districts has risen.
According to numbers presented at Monday’s regular school board meeting, 28 children are being homeschooled within the district’s boundaries.
That’s up from a total of 23 reported this time a year ago.
In 2022, that number was 27 and in 2021 there were 32 students.
Over the last decade or so, the home-school numbers have yo-yo’d, climbing during the Covid-19 pandemic from a recent low of 17 in 2019, then inching back down before this year’s increase.
Board member Tony Colarich, who serves as the district’s home-school liaison, said, “I’m on the committee, to some extent I feel powerless. Where do we turn? What do we do next? How do we get that number to decrease?”
“I don’t have that answer,” said superintendent Anne Oelke. “I think that during Covid, parents got a choice of how to educate their families and got a glimpse of things and there’s a lot of different options now. There’s a whole plethora of online schools that families can choose and if it works for their family, it works for their family.”
Religion was at one time viewed as a leading reason of Medicare reimbursements and fund an operation that would allow for as many as four fully-staffed ambulances in the region - two in Ely and one each in Babbitt and Tower.
But while the city of Winton has already gone on record in support of the proposal and Tower and Ely representatives have indicated they’re open to pursuing more details, the plan has also encountered pushback, particularly from the city of Babbitt.
Babbitt officials have raised concerns related to staffing, coverage and facilities, while other skeptics have urged area leaders to slow down and seek more details about any potential new arrangement.
Yet discussions have revealed many of the challenges related to the current set-up. Those have included EAAS budget shortfalls requiring an infusion of cash from local governments, staffing issues particularly related to interfacility transports.
