Cloquet school district expects $2 million in cuts for next year

The Cloquet school district needs to make roughly $2 million in cuts for the next school year, officials said at Monday’s school board meeting. That’s a lot, even for a budget that is fast approaching $35 million a year.

But the news is not as bad as it might seem.

Superintendent Michael Cary stressed that close to three-fourths of those cuts are coming as a result of two large grants ending in 2024. Those cuts were anticipated from the start of the Covid-19 federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding and a state literacy grant. Between them, the grants employed st...