Although the Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program is full, other schools in the Cloquet district are seeing a decline when compared to pre-pandemic numbers, superintendent Michael Cary told board members Monday.

Pre-Covid, Cary said, resident student numbers had been decreasing slightly, but the high number of students open-enrolling into the district always offset and kept the district numbers on an upward trajectory.

There were a number of years in which the enrollment grew quite a bit, just after the new middle school was built; those kids are in grades 7-10 now.

Cary didn’t seem...