Flooded bus routes provide a lesson in patience for river valley students

May 18—HENDERSON — The Minnesota New Country School, with its five-footed frog logo, has always embraced its location beside the Minnesota River in Henderson.

But when the river gets a little too boisterous, life for the school changes dramatically and for the worse.

"It has a huge impact on our school district," said Anthony Sonnek, a high school advisor who serves as the transportation director for both the elementary and secondary students. "... There are kids who literally live on the other side of the river from the school and it takes them 40 minutes to get to school."

Those students might be able to look across the flooded river and see their school. They might, in normal times, be able to get to class in a couple of minutes by heading west across the Highway 19 bridge. Now, though, it's a drive east to Highway 169, then south toward Le Sueur or north to Belle Plaine before traveling most of the way to Gaylord and coming back into Henderson from the west on Highway 19.

That's life at a riverside school when floods close every road into the city but one.

The unique charter school — offering project-based, experiential learning — attracts students from a broad area of south-central Minnesota, running buses to pickup spots in Mankato, Le Sueur, St. Peter and Belle Plaine. All of those spots are on the wrong side of the Minnesota River these days.

"It's just so much wasted transit time," Sonnek said of the lengthier bus rides. "It's closer to a half-hour (each way) for most. For others, it's closer to an hour."

Students using other pickup spots — like in Winthrop, Gaylord, Green Isle and Arlington — and those living in Henderson aren't quite so impacted. Still, because the school is so focused on getting students out of the classroom, nobody is completely spared.

"Everybody's affected because we do field trips on a weekly basis," he said.

In most cases, the morning pickup times are unchanged but the time students arrive at school is pushed back. In the afternoon, school closes at the regular time, so students are late getting to their homes and — in the case of many high schoolers — their afterschool jobs.

The lost time is particularly challenging in mid-May during the anxiety-producing end-of-the-year push.

"It adds stress for everybody — students and staff," Sonnek said. "The timing couldn't be worse, honestly, for the school district."

The roughly 225 students at Minnesota New Country School are far from alone. The sprawling Le Sueur-Henderson school district is split in the middle by the flooded Minnesota River and has just one river crossing that's still open within its boundaries, which stretch from just northeast of St. Peter to just west of Belle Plaine.

Even St. Peter Public Schools, with students on the wrong side of the Minnesota River from the Lake Washington area to west of Cleveland, is impacted. With the Highway 22 bridge in St. Peter unavailable due to construction and the Highway 99 bridge closed because of high water, those students must be bused south to Mankato or north to Le Sueur to cross the river and travel via Highway 169 to their St. Peter school.

Le Sueur-Henderson students are likely stuck with the long bus rides until the end of the year, because their final day is May 24. Classes at Minnesota New Country and at St. Peter schools continue into the following week, so it's not impossible that the river could drop and the roads could reopen before then.

"It'd be great," Sonnek said. "I'm not going to bet on it."

The flood's crest has been making its way downstream in the past couple of days. It peaked in New Ulm at about 1 a.m. Wednesday, in Judson at about 3 a.m., in Mankato just after 9 a.m., in St. Peter on Wednesday evening and in Henderson late Thursday morning and, after a tiny temporary drop, again in the afternoon.

The water had receded enough in the Mankato area by Thursday afternoon that North Mankato Public Works Director Luke Arnold announced that the Judson Bottom Road would reopen at 7 a.m. Friday.

The crest in Henderson — 735.99 feet above sea level — was a few inches less than forecast, but Sonnek doesn't expect city leaders to be in a rush to reopen roads there. It's risky to remove the temporary flood walls and sandbags while the river is still high and vulnerable to another surge if torrential rains return.

"It's such a huge, arduous process to put those walls up and have to take 'em down," he said.

Sonnek and the New Country staff and students know that well.

"If we are in session, we'll be helping with the sandbags, putting them back in storage," he said.

That comes with enrollment at the school, part of the lesson in community service. The river and nearby wetlands have been playing an educational role since the school's beginning nearly three decades ago.

New Country received nationwide attention when students discovered and researched widespread instances of frog deformities, including five-footed amphibians.

Even on Thursday, as the river crested, the river was offering an education. The students who had helped with sandbagging were invited along as the experts examined how Henderson's massive flood-control system was holding up.

"We had students who were working with the Army Corps of Engineers when they were inspecting, so that was cool," Sonnek said. "So it isn't all bad. There is some benefit for the kids. It's just that the negatives outweigh that."