Stillwater Area High School will move to block scheduling next fall, with each student taking four classes one day and three different classes the next.

The change will give students more opportunities to take elective courses and allow for fewer, longer classes per day. It also will cut down on the number of transitions in hallways, where behavior problems often arise, officials say. The school, which serves students from ninth through 12th grades, has 2,705 students.

The new seven-period schedule will be broken down into odd/even days. Odd days (e.g., Mon/Wed/Fri) would include periods 1, 3, 5, and 7, while even days (e.g., Tue/Thu) would cover periods 2, 4, 6, and a flexible period of time for students to meet with teachers, collaborate with peers, connect with clubs or catch up on homework.

Moving to seven classes each semester instead of six means students will be able to take up to eight additional elective courses over four years. Currently, students who take a world language class and a music class have no room in their schedules for any other electives, said Principal Rob Bach.

“Their schedule is full for four years, and that doesn’t even leave room for some of the other requirements that they need just to graduate from high school,” he said.

Some students take required physical education and health classes online so they “were already adding a seventh class to their schedule,” he said. In addition, a new required class, personal finance, was added this year.

“As those requirements go up, that old vehicle simply was not a good model to get kids the kinds of experiences that they wanted or needed,” Bach said. “We knew that we were going to have to figure out if we were going to offer really competitive programming and the kinds of experiences that kids wanted, we knew we were going to have to create more opportunities in the schedule.”

At the same time, district officials didn’t want to just add another class period on to the day, he said.

“The number of transitions that kids go through every day having seven classes in a day is a lot, and kids are under stress,” he said.

St. Paul, other districts use it

The 85-minute class periods will allow for deeper exploration of material, more time to start and finish work in class and built-in opportunities for students to ask questions and get help, according to district officials.

“If you have seven classes every single day, each of those class periods gets shorter and shorter, so if you only have a 45-minute class, a lot of times you’re just going an inch deep and a mile wide,” he said. “We’re trying to slow things down for kids, give them an opportunity to really, truly get in depth, have class discussions, get your intervention in class, maybe even have time for homework in class so that there’s less of that to do outside, all of those kinds of things.”

Other districts in the east metro have moved to block scheduling in recent years. At Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, one of the largest private schools in the metro area, students follow a block schedule that consists of four 70-minute classes on one day and four different classes the next day.

Seven classes a day can be “cognitively overwhelming,” for students who then need to transition between classes more often, according to district officials.

St. Paul Public Schools moved to block scheduling for its high schools in the 2022-2023 school year. Middle schools in the district joined the move and transitioned to block scheduling for the 2025-2026 school year, with half of district middle schools already following block scheduling.

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Bach said he recently took a group of Stillwater students to tour Edina High School and Wayzata High School, each of which has a block schedule. “They were a little bit nervous on the front end about what an 85-minute class period might look like, but every single one of them, when we were done at the end of the day, came out of it saying, ‘Mr. Bach, we’ve got to do something like this in Stillwater. This is great.’ They loved it.”

Stillwater Area School Board Chair Alison Sherman said switching to a block schedule will provide more opportunities for students.

“We want to meet the needs of our learners so that we can keep them in our schools,” she said. “We have amazing teachers and school environments that benefit our kids.”

College credits

The change in scheduling means more opportunities for students to take classes for college credit at the high school.

Starting next year, students will be able to earn an associate degree while still in high school. Instead of students traveling to Century College, Bethel University or the University of Northwestern to enroll in those school’s Post Secondary Enrollment Option, or PSEO, programs, students at SAHS will be able to earn dual college and high school credits at the school.

PSEO courses are attractive because they aren’t associated with a tuition fee, and books are distributed to students at no cost. But having those students enrolled in PSEO off site means the district is losing state funding.

This year, 342 Stillwater students are enrolled in full or part-time PSEO, Bach said. The majority (272) take classes at Century College, with the rest divided between Bethel (25), Northwestern (11), the University of Minnesota (10) and others, he said.

Bach has been meeting with families to extol the benefits of taking college courses at the high school instead.

“One of the key messages that I’ve told families is that when your kid leaves to go do PSEO, they’re a college student, and colleges treat your kids so much more independently,” he said.

At the high school, “there is absolutely a higher level of expectation on our staff in terms of how they’re going to communicate with parents,” he said.

About 19 percent of students have failed a PSEO online class, compared with 3 percent of those taking a class through the high school, he said. “Why is that? Because our teachers are expected to reach out,” he said. “ They’re expected to communicate with parents. They’re expected to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I see your kid struggling. Let’s talk about a plan to get them back on track,’ all of that kind of stuff. That doesn’t happen when kids leave our entity.”

The first class eligible to graduate from Stillwater Area High School with an A.A. degree will be this year’s current ninth grade class, he said.

Students also will be able to take concurrent enrollment courses for college credit through Minnesota State University, Mankato and the University of Minnesota, and complete the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum, which is a package of general education courses accepted for transfer to other state colleges and universities, with the possibility of earning up to 60 total college credits.

Industry certifications

The school also for the first time will offer industry certifications in two fields: Certified Nursing Assistant and Digital Technologies, said Carissa Keister, the district’s chief of staff.

“Students can graduate with job-ready skills and certifications,” she said. “We’re really being even more proactive in trying to expand those credit opportunities on campus so kids aren’t leaving us to go somewhere else.”

Also starting this fall: an online academy with nine core classes taught by Stillwater teachers.

“Again, we’re trying to meet the needs of kids,” Keister said. “A lot of them are looking at online opportunities, especially post-Covid, so we want to make sure that we have the option for them to take classes again with our great teachers here in Stillwater, and to have that support and be part of the Stillwater community and still have the opportunity to do online learning.”

Students will have the option of taking some asynchronous classes online and some in person at first, but district officials hope to eventually have a full online program option for students, Keister said.

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Online courses will have the same standards and support as in-person classes, and offer more flexibility for students.

“This would give them the option to take maybe two or three classes and then be done for the day,” she said. “They can go to work, they can do their extracurricular activities, and then they can do their online learning at night. … What we’re really hearing from our students and our families is they want to learn when they want to learn. They don’t want to have to sit at a desk from this time to this time.”

The cost of instituting the new programs will be about $800,000, but a portion of that will be offset through staffing adjustments, Keister said.

Pioneer Press education reporter Imani Cruzen contributed to this report. 

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative activist Ed Martin has been removed as head of the Justice Department group tasked with scrutinizing the federal prosecutions of President Donald Trump and is no longer working out of department headquarters, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Martin remains the department’s pardon attorney, but is now working out of a building across Washington that houses some Justice Department offices, the person said. Martin had previously been working on the fourth floor at Justice Department headquarters, which houses the deputy attorney general’s office.

It was not immediately clear why Martin was no longer in charge of the “Weaponization Working Group,” created on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s first day in office last year, but another person familiar with the matter said the group under his leadership was not making much progress. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal personnel matter.

Efforts to reach Martin by telephone and email weren’t immediately successful Monday.

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Martin has been a leading figure in — and cheerleader for — Trump’s campaign to use the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies, including former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. A judge dismissed the Comey and James prosecutions in November, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at Trump ’s urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

Last January, Trump installed Martin as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin, who had no prior prosecutorial experience, immediately injected partisan politics into the nation’s largest U.S. Attorney’s office. He fired and demoted subordinates who worked on politically sensitive cases, including Capitol riot prosecutions. He posted on social media about potential targets of investigations. And he oversaw the dismissal of hundreds of Jan. 6 cases after Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for all Capitol riot defendants.

But the president yanked Martin’s nomination to keep the job on a more permanent basis two days after a key Republican senator said he could not support Martin for the job. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina opposed Martin’s nomination because of his outspoken advocacy for rioters who attacked the Capitol.

Martin was a leader of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement. He spoke at a rally in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack and later served on the board of a nonprofit that raised money to support Capitol riot defendants and their families.

Last May, Trump picked Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to replace Martin as the top federal prosecutor. Martin immediately moved over to department headquarters to serve as pardon attorney.

A deaf Los Angeles teenager says he was assaulted and taken into custody during a protest in downtown Los Angeles last month by federal immigration officers, who cited him for failing to comply with their directions.

Videos posted on Saturday, Jan. 24 to Instagram show armed agents, wearing U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security uniforms, chasing and tackling 18-year-old Anthony Paredes, seen wearing a red, green and white poncho, to the ground.

Multiple people are heard in the background yelling, “He’s deaf! He cannot hear!” and asking officers not to hurt him. “DHS agents just tackled a young deaf man to the ground,” the caption read. Another read, “DHS puts lives at risk.”

It was not clear what preceded the incident. DHS did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend.

“DHS came outside and started chasing a hearing woman, and ended up chasing me instead,” Paredes, who does not speak, signed on social media. “Because I’m disabled; they took advantage of that. … they targeted me because I’m deaf.”

18-year-old deaf activist Anthony Paredes with L.A. educators and organizers at a Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 rally decrying federal immigration enforcement. The rally was held in front of LA Unified School District headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Joshua Silla)

At a Saturday, Jan. 31 press conference and rally in front of LA Unified School District headquarters, Paredes gathered with supporters and LAUSD educators, including his own teachers, to denounce the incident.

Around 60 educators and organizers from Union del Barrio, the Association of Raza Educators and Educator Power 2026 joined to decry what they called a violation of Paredes’ civil rights.

This was a “brutal assault for speaking out and standing for justice,” Ron Gochez, an LAUSD teacher and organizer with Unión del Barrio, said at the rally.

“As educators, we called this event together. We are here in support of Anthony, a high school student at LAUSD who was brutalized by the agents. We are here to support Anthony and demand justice.” Gochez said. “As teachers, we have the responsibility to not only teach our children in the classroom, but to defend our kids on the street as well.”

Paredes, who is a high school senior at Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, said through an interpreter on Saturday that the encounter was “frustrating to navigate.” He said on social media that his chest hurt when they tackled him, and after he was taken into custody, no sign language interpreters were provided. Also, requests to use a bathroom were ignored.

“There were so many people, a lot of overlapping noises … they tackled me to the ground … I felt so alone. I used my phone to write back and forth,” Paredes said.

The 18-year-old said he was protesting that evening “on behalf of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and all people who were brutally murdered” by federal immigration enforcement officers.

In a later statement shared to the media, Paredes said that he was “deeply disturbed” by ICE activity, which motivated him to join protesters nationwide assembled peacefully “to call attention to what they saw as excessive use of force.”

Minnesotans and people around the country have gathered in freezing temperatures, and at times by the tens of thousands, to object to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics and to defend their neighbors from ICE. They patrol in cars and on foot and film what officers do, stand outside schools to protect families, and deliver groceries to those fearful of leaving their homes.

Paredes called out President Donald Trump’s family for being immigrants themselves, and denounced the MAGA movement for, he said, “hating immigrants.

“Immigrants have helped build this country for generations. When we stand together and support one another, we are stronger. We should work together to protect families, friends and loved ones and to make sure everyone is treated with dignity and respect,” Paredes wrote. “I believe strongly in the right to peacefully protest and to speak up when something feels unfair. Peaceful protest is an important way for people to ask for change and to protect civil rights. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly, no matter who they are.”

At Saturday’s rally, organizers and LAUSD educators said they are going to file a claim and a lawsuit against the government, and will fight to have Paredes’ case dropped. They also called for more support and accessibility for the community.

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At the rally, L.A. teacher Lupe Carrasco Cardona said she was proud of not only her students, but of educators who openly criticized ICE.

“We should not be attacked for trying to ensure that there is a better world out there for all of us, because every single student, all of our community members, enrich our communities,” Cardona said. “Never in my 26 years as an educator did I have students who actually know … terror in their streets, in their communities, in their families.”

Ingrid Villega, an organizer with United Teachers Los Angeles, said that Paredes watched “the death of an innocent American citizen (Alex Pretti), and that provoked him to come and stand for dignity and justice.

“He was exercising his constitutional right as a student, a human being, and a citizen in this country. But laws here don’t matter anymore. As educators, we are asking that all charges be dropped; that both the union and LAUSD use all their resources and relationships to ensure all the charges be dropped against Anthony,” Villega said.

“I can just imagine how much training those agents need to understand the (deaf) community, and make sure their rights are observed,” she said. “It’s ridiculous to give a deaf person orders and expect them to follow — and not to give that deaf person an interpreter, or a right to call his mom, his attorney — and still charge him.”

Guadalupe Diaz, Paredes’ mother, thanked those at Saturday’s rally for their support, and was grateful that her child is able to express himself despite not being able to hear or speak. She said she was concerned that during Friday’s encounter, federal agents did not provide her son with an interpreter.

“Let’s hope that what happened with Anthony makes them take our people, our families, into account,” Diaz said. “He’s doing this from the heart … it takes a lot of courage. What we want is simply for our voices to be heard and for justice to prevail above all else.”

A court date is set for April 1.

On social media, Paredes also called for more accessibility and resources for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in LAUSD. He also called on the Latinx community, and those who support the deaf and hard-of-hearing to come to his hearing to support him.

“I’m going to continue showing up to these protests and not giving up my rights,” he signed. “This needs to stop — the goal is for ICE to melt, and we are fire! We have the power.”

A group home worker admitted to police that he slept while a vulnerable man he was supposed to be caring for stepped out into dangerously cold weather and died in a North St. Paul street last week, according to a criminal complaint.

Abiodun Olalekan Onakoya, 29, of Champlin, is charged in Ramsey County District Court with felony criminal neglect in connection with the Jan. 27 incident at the group home in the 2700 block of McKnight Road North in North St. Paul.

According to Thursday’s complaint:

A North St. Paul police officer on routine patrol saw a naked person lying face down in the street at the intersection of 17th Avenue East and Second Street North about 4:24 a.m. Medics arrived and pronounced the 44-year-old dead; autopsy results are pending.

(Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Temperatures were well below freezing during the early morning hours, the complaint said.

Officers checked the group home and discovered the man was a vulnerable adult who lived at the residence, which is about four blocks north of where he was found.

Officers were told Onakoya was the staff member assigned to the man’s one-on-one care.

A staff member told police that he wasn’t aware the man was missing until police arrived. He said he found the man’s bedroom door open, so he looked inside and saw he wasn’t there. He looked for Onakoya, who was responsible for the man, and found Onakoya sleeping in a spare bedroom of the residence with the lights off and the door closed, the complaint said.

Police discovered from group home records that the man had left his room in recent days. On Jan. 19, eight days before his death, he left his room naked and ran back to his room when confronted by staff. The next day, he left his room naked three times between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Three days after that, he disrobed and attempted to run out of the house through the garage, but was stopped by staff arriving for shift change, the complaint said.

Police believe the man also went through the home’s garage the night he died. When they arrived, the garage door was open and “staff members were by the main entrance and exit and would have noticed (the man) attempting to leave,” the complaint read. “There were no footprints in the snow outside of (the man’s) windows.”

Police reviewed camera footage from a home located near where the man was found. It showed he walked past the camera on the sidewalk on westbound 17th Avenue at 3:22 a.m., just under an hour before he was found. “He was walking normally and did not appear to be injured,” the complaint read.

Onakoya, in an interview with police, admitted that he was sleeping in a downstairs bedroom off the living room. He said that he knows he is not supposed to sleep while at work and that “he never thought this would happen,” the complaint read.

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Onakoya’s signed work agreement states that he was not allowed to sleep at any time while at work, the complaint said.

Onakoya went before a judge on the charge and was granted conditional release from jail ahead of a next hearing scheduled for April 14. An attorney for Onakoya was not listed in his court file.

State records show the Department of Human Services temporarily suspended the license for the group home on Friday, pending further investigation. A message left Monday for the license holder, Pathways to Community, based in St. Paul, seeking comment on the suspension and the criminal case against Onakoya was not immediately returned.