By Tom Weber, Minnesota Public Radio News

Today is the first day of class for most public school students in Minnesota.

For all the recent hand-wringing over the state budget, school leaders from the Canadian border to southern Minnesota want students to know that the school year will be much the same as in previous years.

“They’re not going to see anything different in the playground,” St. Cloud Superintendent Bruce Watkins said. “They’re not going to see anything different in the hallways, to speak of.”

Although school leaders have bemoaned state cuts to education and delayed payments to their districts, they’ve worked like mad to keep doomsday scenarios from happening.

“I think we’re extremely adept and good at not having it felt by our students and our families, which probably in some ways is counterproductive to our continued pleas for increases in funding,” said, Mark Porter, superintendent of the South Washington County district.

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