Ashland School District Impacted by Northland College’s Closure

ASHLAND, Wis.– The Ashland community is coming to terms with what they’re calling a significant loss after the Northland College closed its doors last spring.

“We are definitely nervous about what it will do to our staffing and our entire community. About 15% of our staff is Northland College graduates, and over 20% of our staff is related to Northland College,” said Rob Parter, Ashland School District Superintendent.

Besides the lack of teachers throughout the district, the impact is anticipated to be felt city-wide.

“A lot of our younger teachers that graduated from Northland chose to stay because they love the community. They love the area. Now, unfortunately, we don’t have the same kind of opportunity for people to come to Ashland and get to see what Ashland all is about,” said Mark Reimer, 8th Grade Teacher at Ashland Middle School.

Some of the Northland College Alumni told FOX 21, their experience set them up for success and has greatly shaped their career.

“My skill set at Northland, working with youth at risk, developing programming, learning, hard skills and a lot of safety mitigation through developing those programs, made it a pretty natural fit to come be an educator,” explained Jon Flynn, Alternative Educator, Ashland High School.

Officials said, tutors, referees, and in person post-secondary education for highschoolers was something that was made possible by the college.

And right now, in the meantime, they’re trying to fill in the gaps.

“We participated in some job fairs. So, when we had open jobs for people that were leaving Northland College, we hired several of those. We’ve also just helped with them in the community. We’ve also been looking for other places for our student teachers to come from,” said Prater.

“We still do have Northwood Tech, which students do take classes. UW Superior has helped fill some of that void.” added Prater.

Despite everything going on, Ashland faculty said students are currently performing very well.

And to navigate this there’s an abundance of community support.

“t feels great. It’s been real community support. I know the city of Ashland, lots of the local nonprofits and businesses are trying to find something to reinvent Northland college so that that land goes to use. And we, you know, we’re very hopeful to be a part of that, because it brings so much innovation,” said Prater.