Month: January 2025

The Crookston School Board met Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choir and Orchestra room. 

STUDENT ATTENDANCE
The featured program was on student attendance and presented by Crookston High School Principal Matt Torgerson. Crookston School District is well below the state average in the number of consistent attendance. In 2023, the latest numbers available, the state average was 74.49% and Crookston was at 64.9 percent. Consistent attendance is attending more than 90% of the school days in a school year. ““Really, all I want people to know is the importance of coming to school and attending regularly. I don’t think anybody would disagree that coming to school isn’t important, I don’t know if everyone understands how important it is and how much we do miss,” said Torgerson. “About one-third of our students in 2023 miss more than 18 days of school in the year. That is a lot. It is more than one every other week. When you put it into perspective, we are missing a lot of school, missing a lot of learning, and missing a lot of opportunities for our future.”

Chronic absenteeism has been linked to the following-
-Lower academic achievement
-More likely to take part in criminal activity
-More likely to have violent tendencies
-More likely to be ill
-Have negative mental health and more likely to attempt suicide
-More likely to participate in substance abuse
-More likely to become pregnant as a teen
-More likely to drop out of school
-More likely to have a lower income in adulthood

“I think everybody understands that coming to school is important, but we don’t always remember how big of a deal it is,” said Torgerson. “It is for their well-being, and it’s not just to learn math and reading. We are looking to partner with the parents to try to break down any barriers that might prevent students from attending school. Whether it is the transportation barrier, a mental health barrier, or an illness barrier, we have ways to manage all those different situations, so if you are a parent of a student, but you don’t know what to do about it , reach out to one of the principals and we will do our best to help you out.“

RESOLUTION DIRECTING ADMIN TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCTIONS
The board approved the annual resolution directing the administration to make recommendations for reductions in programs and positions and the reasons for them. “School districts do this every year, usually in January. It doesn’t mean the school district will make any cuts, but it is a standard resolution and is something that has to be done,” said Superintendent Randy Bergquist. “We have to look at everything and rightsize our district, and if we have to add something, that is a possibility too.”

BOARD COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
The school board decided to combine some committees and they are down to the Finance, Negotiations, Policy, Achievement, and Community Relations committees. “We had to many committees in this district,” said Superintendent Bergquist. “We set up the committee structure and we will have two or three school board members on every committee.”
Finance Committee (Tim Dufault – Chair, Mike Theis, and Lori Capistran)
Negotiations Committee (Mike Theis – Chair, Tim Dufault, Jaclyn Martin)
Policy Committee (Marcia Meine-Chair, Jaclyn Martin)
Achievement Committee (Lori Capistran-Chair, Mike Theis, Marcia Meine)
Community Relations (Patty Dillabough-Chair, Marcia Meine, Jaclyn Martin)

CONSENT AGENDA
The board approved resignations from Nate Lubarski as head football coach, Kayla Brekken and Izabella Hyde as paraprofessionals, Lenny Fuller as mechanic and bus driver, Dave and Cindy Tyler as bus drivers, and Kelsey Grunewald as payroll specialist.
The board approved the employment of LaQuetta Cobbs and Frittney Deitz as paraprofessionals and leave of absence for Matt Torgerson for four to six weeks, and Cayley Kruckerberg for up to 12 weeks.
The board approved a $1,000 donation from the United Way for the PATCH program, a $2,500 donation from the United Way for the Eat United Food program, a $500.92 from Central Harvest States (CHS) for the Highland School Inclusive playground, a $10,000 donation from KeyBank National Association Trust Division for the Highland School Inclusive playground, $200 from Jordan and Kayse Thompson for the Highland Inclusive playground, $2,000 from Halstad Telephone Company for student scholarships, $100 from Todd Torgerson for the Woods Class, and $500 from Hart Travel for the Athletics department.

The next school board meeting will be Monday, February 24 at 5:00 p.m. at the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.

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The City of Crookston held a Workshop on Roles and Responsibilities on Monday, January 27, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall.

Before the workshop started, Tanner Holten, the attorney for the City of Crookston, gave a brief summary of the closed meeting on Monday, January 21, which had to do with City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge’s evaluation. “Not everything is publically available, but under the statutes, we are required to give a closed meeting summary at the next council meeting, and that’s what I did,” says City Attorney Tanner Holten. “Essentially, what happened at that meeting was we talked about the City Administrator, what he’s been through, the tough spot with the audit, the difficulty with keeping long-serving City Administrators in Crookston and keeping staff at high levels in our departments. We talked about the things the City Administrator is doing well, some things that the council would like him to do differently, one of which being that department heads attend City Council meetings going forward.” Besides what the City Administrator was doing well or needed to work on, the Council talked about setting some expectations going forward and giving him some benchmarks to hit, as well as giving the Administrator a raise. “Also, we were talking about potentially giving the City Administrator a raise,” says Holten. “He provided some data from comparable cities in other areas.” Holten says that the Closed Council meeting on the topic of the City Administrators evaluation will continue next Monday, February 3.  At that time, the Council will continue to discuss the performance of the City Administrator and consider the data that he provided to the city.

The Workshop, which was put on by the League of Minnesota Cities, reviewed some areas of the Crookston Charter and policies pertaining to agendas, meetings, and new member orientations. Aimee Gourlay, Lexi Wentworth, and Josie Rosene from the League of Minnesota Cities led the workshop. The later session was supposed to cover “Working as a team” (within your roles) and some of the next steps in developing policies.

Unfortunately, on Monday evening, due to illness, injury, and other unforeseen matters, there were only four of the eight council members on hand for the workshop.  “It went as well as could be expected; we did have some emergencies that happened with some of our council,” says City Administrator Jeff Shoobridge. “Our thoughts and prayers all go out to them.  We will continue further down the road; the council will dictate the timing on that, and we will schedule some more things to finish up and clean up some of the loose strings.”

The next City Council meeting is Monday, February 3, at 5:30 p.m.

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The Minnesota County Engineers Association and their Safety Committee awarded Polk County the Highway Safety Achievement Award on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders was on hand to receive the award. The Highway Safety Achievement Award recognizes and promotes leadership that values and implements traffic safety programs, plans, and projects impacting their community.

This award was given for the work done to construct the first roundabout in Polk County. The roundabout was constructed at the intersection of County Road 21 & Highway 75, North of Crookston, hoping to reduce the number of accidents that had occurred at that intersection over the years. “The roundabout itself, the thought about putting in a roundabout at that location, started back in 2020 thereabouts,” says Sanders. “MNDOT and I were having discussions about the intersection. First thoughts, we knew there was an issue with that intersection when it came to crashes.”

The issues with the intersection started long before any thoughts of a roundabout occurred. Sanders said that, back in 2007 and 2008, they really started looking for ways to fix the skew of the road. “We went to the County Board thinking that if we just realigned 75 to County Rd. 21 to come in at a 90 degree, that that would be our first option,” says Sanders. “Back then, they didn’t really want to spend a lot of money on that intersection and asked if there was a lower-cost solution.” Sanders says that after talking to MNDOT, they then put in a Rural Intersection Conflict Warning System.  The flashing lights warning of oncoming traffic were up for between 8 to 10 years, and Sanders says traffic just got so used to them that they were becoming ineffective, and accidents were once again happening at the intersection in a more frequent interval.

So, in 2020, talks of realigning the roadway started again as Sanders said something needed to be done. “I said, well if we are going to realign the roadway, let’s put in a roundabout, and then we don’t have to worry about t-bone crashes at all,” says Sanders. “MNDOT agreed, and so Polk County became the project lead.”

In designing the roundabout, Sanders said that they had to consider all the different vehicles that travel on those roads. “One of the major vehicles was Transystems semis that haul sugarbeets from Warren down to Crookston,” says Sanders. “So, we designed the roundabout to make sure it, along with all the farm traffic, school buses, and everything else, could go through that roundabout safely and not have issues when trying to get through it.”

The intersection of Trunk Highway 75 and County State Aid Highway 21, North of Euclid, was closed to through traffic starting in early July of 2024 so Gladen Construction, out of Laporte, could start work on their contract to construct the roundabout.  The timeline set by Sanders was to have the roundabout open to traffic by October 1, 2024. “We had in the contract that it had to be open by October 1,” says Sanders. “ The reason why is sugarbeet harvest goes full-blown on October 1, and we wanted to make sure that that intersection was open so we weren’t detouring sugarbeet traffic at that time.”

As it can be many years in Minnesota, the weather played a factor at the start of the project. “By the way the weather went, a little wet to begin with, but then it dried up,” says Sanders. “The contractor was able to get to work, and we actually opened the roundabout on October 1.”

Sanders says that so far, the glitches with the roundabout have been pretty minor and are just more of a learning curve for drivers. “Of course, traffic in our area hasn’t seen a roundabout, or if you have, it’s been in more of an urban setting,” says Sanders. “So, I’ve only heard of two little glitches that have happened. One was because the railroad tracks are on the East side of the roundabout. We have about 200 feet of pavement between the railroad tracks and the roundabout, and the first train that went through, people had to realize actually how to pull up and park, and so the roundabout was plugged for a little while.” Sanders says the second issue was on Christmas Eve; there was some blowing and drifting snow on the roundabout, and a Transystem truck got stuck.  To Sanders’s knowledge, there have not been any issues at the roundabout since.

Sanders says he is very proud of the roundabout and is thankful for the many entities that played a part in completing the project. “I’m very proud of receiving the Highway Safety Achievement Award from the Minnesota County Engineers and their Safety Committee,” says Sanders. “You do your job; you are trying to make your roads safer for the residents of Polk County and the people that drive in Polk County, and you do a project such as this, a more complex one, which is the roundabout and everything we had to go through to get it constructed and your mentors recognize that and give you an award.”

As one would guess, when an award is given, many times, there are people in the background that need to be mentioned and congratulated as well. “I’m proud of the people that work at my office. My Assistant, Darin Carlstrom, did a lot of work to make this roundabout happen,” says Sanders. “I had the main technician out on the job Ryan Wagner from Crookston, who did a great job of making sure the contractor built it the way the plans are; Jeff Coon from Widseth down in Alex probably pulled a lot of his hair out trying to get this design done through MNDOTs geometrics and then the MNDOT District stepped up and helped us out with some survey work, some testing work and making sure that everything being done up there as well, was constructed the way they expect their MNDOT projects to be constructed.”

Congratulations to Polk County and Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders, and thank you for making the roads safer for Polk County residents and all who travel through Polk County.

The post Polk County Engineer Richard Sanders Accepts Highway Safety Achievement Award on behalf of Polk County first appeared on KROX.

Applications are open for arts grants for nonprofit arts organizations, communities, schools, and other nonprofit organizations in our seven-county Minnesota service area, including Kittson, Marshall, Norman, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, and Roseau counties.

Nonprofits and government organizations can apply for one art project at a time. Upcoming grant deadlines are February 28. Grants are between $500 and $10,000. Funding sources for these grants are Clean Water, Land, and Legacy funds and general allocation funds from the State of Minnesota. 

Organizational arts activities funded through these very important grant opportunities include festivals, community theatre projects, folk music entertainment, sponsorship of visual demonstrations, creative writing workshops, and many other activities that improve the quality of life of people in our communities. This is a great way to bring arts experiences to your community.

We offer a grant writing workshop online or in-person to assist you with your application. You are welcome to come to our office in Warren for the workshop or to work on your grants. RSVPs are required for grant writing sessions—please email  director@nwartscouncil.org. 

The session will be held on Tuesday, February 11, at 4:00 PM. You can also schedule a time to work one-on-one with our director on the grant writing process.

Schools in our seven-county region can also apply now for an Artist Residency grant of $2,600 plus an additional $400 if the residency needs supplies. Our teaching artist roster is a great resource to view artists available to teach in our area, and is available on our website at www.NorthwestMinnesotaArtsCouncil.org under the artists tab. Another resource to view artists available to enhance curriculum is COMPAS.

Schools can initially apply for one residency. Then based on remaining funding, can request up to three additional residencies into spring and summer. Funding for residency activities comes from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment in Minnesota.

Also available on a first-come-first-served basis are Quick Turnaround Grants for $500. These grants are awarded to performing artists, visual artists, media artists, and creative writing artists from our seven-county Minnesota service area, including Kittson, Marshall, Norman, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, and Roseau counties.

To learn more about these grant programs and start an application, visit www.NorthwestMinnesotaArtsCouncil.org. The grant application process is completely online, and NWMAC’s Director Mara Hanel can help walk you through the process of using the grants portal to get accustomed to it. Please contact her at director@NWArtsCouncil.org or call 218-745-8886.

The post Applications due for Arts Grants in the Seven-County Area February 28 first appeared on KROX.

The Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association (MESPA) proudly announces that Principal Andy Fougner of Red Lake County Central Elementary has been awarded the Northern Division Leadership Award for his exemplary leadership and commitment to educational excellence.

As the principal of Red Lake County Central Elementary, Principal Fougner has earned the admiration and respect of his peers, staff, and community for his dedication to fostering strong relationships and creating a supportive, collaborative environment. Reflecting on his work, Principal Fougner said, “I am very proud to be a member of the Northern Division and appreciate the bond and cohesiveness that this group provides. This is a top-notch group of school leaders that wants the best for all members and provides a level of support and collaboration that is unbeatable. I am proud to call my Northern Division principals my friends.”
Fougner’s leadership philosophy is deeply rooted in integrity, as illustrated by his favorite quote from Albert Einstein: “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.” He is guided by a commitment to doing what is best for students and staff regardless of external pressures.
A longtime advocate for education, Principal Fougner has previously served on MESPA’s Education Political Action Committee (EPAC) and the Financial Awareness Committee, where he worked tirelessly to improve the quality of education for students across Minnesota.

Fougner expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to work in a profession that he feels deeply passionate about. “We are in the business of building relationships with whomever walks through our doors, and I feel so very blessed to work alongside all of the staff members at Red Lake County Central Schools,” he shared.

Congratulations to Principal Andy Fougner on this well-deserved honor! MESPA is proud to celebrate his contributions to education and the meaningful work he continues to do in Red Lake County Central Schools and beyond.

The post RLCC Elementary Principal Andy Fougner receives MESPA Leadership Award first appeared on KROX.