FAQ

Although our school district is quite strong already, there is always room for improvement.  I should clarify that I’m not running for re-election on any certain “agenda,” but there are a few things I’d like to accomplish in the next term.  First, I’d like to see the quality of our instruction continue to improve, along with our test scores.  Our district should be celebrated for being ranked 15th and 18th in math and reading proficiency, respectively, of the 327 districts in Minnesota.  We’re one of the only districts in our area to see meaningful gains in these metrics over the past few years.  The implementation this year of our new K-5 reading curriculum, Amplify CKLA, should continue our upward trajectory in the years to come.  

We also have facilities projects that I’d like to see completed.  Replacing the 1960s-era air handling system at Riverview Intermediate School is one of our biggest facilities needs, and is one that has been communicated to the public since about 2015.  Additionally, we, in partnership with the other five area school districts that make up the Benton Stearns Education District (which provides special education services), need to replace aging and inadequate facilities.  BSED hopes to enter into a long-term lease for a newly renovated facility to house all BSED staff and students.  Finally, our sports and physical education complex at the high school is in need of completion, and I hope to see that project on a public referendum ballot in early 2025.  The RIS HVAC project will also have to be on the same referendum ballot, because the school board voted down the initiative I supported to approve project financing at the board level - which would have saved overall cost and put the project on an earlier schedule.

Another thing our district needs goes beyond the schools themselves and is more of a community-wide need.  We would benefit from increased development; everything from affordable starter homes for younger families to larger, longer-term homes, to businesses large and small.  Residential development is the most effective way to increase our district enrollment numbers and the needed funding that comes with it.  Like most school districts in our area, our enrollment has been slowly declining over the last few years due to decreased birth rates, meaning we need to attract new families to the district to avoid having to make further cuts amongst our staff.  Also, we need more business development to diversify our tax base and take some of the burden of school tax levies off our residential properties.  On this topic, I need to compliment our high school students and staff who this September gave a tour of SHS to Niron Magnetics, which is a company that recently announced it will build a manufacturing headquarters here in Sartell for about 175 employees.  I’ve been told that the Niron representatives who visited SHS were blown away by the quality of our students and the programming offered to them.  The bottom line is that if we (school board members included) are good stewards of the district, people will be drawn here.

I also hope to improve our school board's ability to function as a cohesive unit.  The difficulty our board had approving employee contracts earlier this year showed that we still have a lot of room for improvement.  However, the school board recently did a self-evaluation survey with the ultimate goal of participating in guided seminars in the near future on how to function better as a group.  If I'm re-elected, I will be committed to continuing this work so that we can send a message of strength and shared vision - not just to our current residents, but also anyone looking to make our school district a home for their family or business.

Lastly, sometime in my next term I’d like to see the school board comprehensively amend the district’s mission statement and strategic plan.  This was last done in 2022, and should typically be done about every five years.  This is an important tool for the superintendent and others working in the district because it gives them a road map of the priorities and goals our community has for our schools.  Because of this, it’s important that the community and district administration/staff be involved with this process as well.

My take on it was very public because I’m currently on the board.  I’d recommend anyone interested in this issue watch the recordings of our meetings and work sessions between February and June of this year to gain a better understanding of what happened.  

Here’s the background: two days before the individual employment contracts for our department directors and other district-level staff were set to expire (which our attorney explained would have terminated their employment), our board deviated from the way those contracts historically got approved.  In the past, we’d taken a single vote to approve the contracts on the recommendation of the superintendent, because the superintendent is the school board’s only employee and we delegate the management and performance evaluations of these staff members to the superintendent.  After failing multiple times to approve the contracts this spring on 3-3 votes under our typical process, the board approved all but one of the contracts at the final hour by instead voting on each employee’s contract separately, leaving one director employed under the terms of her previous contract.  

Our school board code of ethics obligates me to support the decision that was made, even if my position at the time was different than what resulted.  As I move forward in support of the decision our board made, my main objective will be to ensure we as a school board appreciate and respect the fact that, because the superintendent is best positioned to do so, it is ultimately the superintendent’s responsibility to evaluate other employees and determine whether they are fit to remain employed – not ours.  After all, the school board does not interact at all with many of these employees, and we aren't around to oversee the day-to-day work of any of them even if we occasionally work with some of them at meetings.  I will also work to avoid a situation where the school board non-renews a contract (i.e. fires someone) under circumstances that would open the district up to liability for wrongful termination.  If school board members become aware of legitimate concerns about the job performance of any of these employees, the appropriate channel is to instead work with and through the superintendent.

I mostly discuss issues that voters bring up as being important to them, the most common being: 

(1) approving the Riverview Intermediate School HVAC project as soon as possible to keep taxpayer cost down and benefit our kids; 

(2) keeping political influence from nonresidents/outside groups to a minimum; 

(3) continuing to improve the function/professionalism of the board; 

(4) getting the SHS stadium project to a referendum ballot; and 

(5) generally wanting governance that aims to celebrate and support our kids and staff.

I’d ensure that this work continues, and is done internally by district administration. I wasn’t yet on the school board when the district hired a consultant for an equity audit, but I was on the board when we received the consultant’s final report that didn’t live up to professional expectations. This work is important, and it was better in the end that we cut ties with the consultant, sought and received a partial refund, and did the work ourselves. I trust that our administrators have the knowledge and experience to do this work right.