Upward bound concludes
A new end date for the Upward Bound Program at CSB+SJU was announced by administration. The grant will now expire on June 30 of this year.
On April 9, a community announcement addressed to Upward Bound Students and Families was sent by CSB Dean of Students Jody Terhaar, informing them that the Upward Bound Program Grant would be ending on June 30, 2026, rather than the previous end date of August 2027.
The program will end a year and three months earlier than previously decided.
In the announcement, the Dean stated the reasoning behind this change was due to “significant staffing changes,” as the program director, Alexandra Scheibelhut, is no longer working at CSB.
“We are grateful for her leadership, her commitment to students and the many contributions she made to the program,” Terhaar said via the email announcement.
Scheibelhut told The Record that she was fired in late March for “unprofessionalism,” and said that after she asked for clarification about the reasons for her termination, she was told it was due to her LinkedIn post(s) expressing disappointment about CSB’s decision to not reapply for the federal grant that made the program possible.
Along with news of the changed end for the program, the community announcement explained that “support in schools will continue through the end of each school’s academic year, including services from our student mentors/tutors and our advisors, Dillon Meade and Jazmyn Weddig.”
The last day at the high schools will be May 12 at St. Cloud Tech, May 18 at Apollo, May 20 at Sauk Rapids-Rice and May 28 at Willmar.
The Saturday programs scheduled for April 18 and May 9 will proceed as planned, as well as the end-of-year program.
The announcement confirmed again that there will be no summer residential program or bridge program due to the revised grant end date.
Despite mutual communications, Terhaar did not respond to The Record with an additional on-the-record statement in time for the print date.
Scheibelhut previously told The Record in an initial article about the Upward Bound program closure in the Feb. 19 edition of The Record that ending the program will hurt CSB’s relationship with other high schools and colleges in the program and will harm the students involved in Upward Bound.
