Former Hayfield principal receives probation

Former Hayfield High School Principal Grant Thomas Klennert, 39, was sentenced to probation last week in Wabasha County District Court after pleading guilty in January to criminal sexual conduct.

According to court records, Klennert was granted a stay of adjudication on three of five charges that were filed against him in 2022. One charge each of first-degree criminal sexual assault and second-degree criminal sexual conduct were dropped in a plea agreement deal.

He was sentenced to 42 days in jail with work-release privileges and will spend 19 years on supervised probation and pay $1,500 annually to an appropriate charity while on probation. Under the conditions of his probation, he must have no contact with his victims, undergo a psychological-sexual evaluation, and have no unsupervised contact with children in certain circumstances, including no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16 until a therapist says such contact may be allowed.

Judge Christopher A. Neisen of the Wabasha District Court handed down the sentence.

All of the incidents occurred in Wabasha County when both Klennert and the victims were juveniles.

Charges were brought against Klennert in December 2022. In October of 2022 the incidents were first reported to law enforcement officials by a man who accused Klennert of assaulting him over the course of several years. A second victim reported Klennert sexually assaulted her when she was about 13 years old. He was also accused of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old-juvenile male.

According to the criminal complaint filed in 2022, the assaults occurred between 1997 and the fall of 2003.

Klennert had been employed by the Hayfield School District for 16 years and for the last seven years was principal at Hayfield High School.