The Crookston School Board met Monday evening in the Crookston High School Choir/Orchestra room.
SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH APPROVED
The Crookston School Board unanimously approved going with the Minnesota School Board Association full search for a new Superintendent at $11,900. The MSBA will conduct an initial planning meeting with the school board to establish a search timeline, discuss hiring criteria and public involvement, identify the district’s position in the marketplace, determine advertising venues, and finalize all processes and procedures for the search. “In a full search, the MSBA will do a full background check of every candidate chosen to be a part of this search group. They will also advertise for the school board. They will review and help review the community, see the possibilities for that person, and what traits are needed for the school district. They’ll also do a full candidate list with, or what are the expectations in the school, you know, teachers, students, administration,” said Interim Superintendent Randy Bruer. “They go out and advertise in every state. They put a pretty good listing together, know the potential candidates are out there, collect all the information from the candidates, review it, and give it to the school board to make some choices. They might even make some recommendations that would be fitting for the district. So it’s a good idea to go through the search process.”
School Board Chair Tim Dufault said the MSBA said it would be good to list the opening in mid-December.
FUNDING PRESENTATION BY SCHOOL BOARD CHAIR DUFAULT
School Board Chair Tim Dufault presented to the board and those in attendance, showing that a 2.74 percent increase in state funding for the 2025-26 school year doesn’t mean the school district is seeing a 2.74 percent increase across the board. The increase is only in basic revenue, which would only be a 1.22790 percent increase to the overall budget because the district only gets 66 percent of its revenue from state aid. “The legislature will come out in the spring, and education is going to get a two percent or a three percent increase. And you think it’s across our whole budget. And boy, that’s great. But it isn’t across our whole budget. It’s just on the basic revenue, which is one stream of our dollars that come into the school district. And so that 2.74 that we’re getting this year,” said Dufault. “When you widdle it down, we’re only going to get like 1.22% increase in our overall budget. And so we have to keep that in mind regarding budgeting this spring. We had to cut half a million dollars this past spring. All the signs point to the same kind of thing this time. We’ve got other expenses, and it’s a new round of contracts and negotiations. So we’ve got to keep all this in mind.”
PUBLIC HEARING SET FOR CLOSURE OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL
The Crookston School District has set a date for a public hearing on the closure of Washington School. The hearing will be on November 12 at 6:00 p.m. at the Highland School auditorium. “When we did the addition to Highland, it was always to bring in the pre-K and the early childhood education over to Highland, along with the kindergarten. Well, we got the kindergarten over there, but the early childhood family education kids are still over at Washington,” said Dufault. “Last year, it worked out just because of the numbers. This year, it’s time to move. We look at the expense. Again, we have to cut the budget. We figure it’s roughly costing us $130,000 to keep the building open. We have the room at Highland. We can bring the people, the kids, and the staff over. We could do with less kitchen staff, less upkeep on the lawn, custodians, and less travel time for some staff members. So it’s going to be a win-win for us. But by law, we have to have an open forum.” There will also be a self-guided tour with Highland School staff to show the public where the classrooms will be starting at 5:00 p.m. with the public hearing at 6:00 p.m.
JOHN PROULX DONATES $50,000 TO THE DISTRICT FOR KIDS IN NEED
Superintendent Bruer said the Crookston School District is receiving a $50,000 donation from John Proulx to go to students in need. “That’s a great donation, no doubt about it. But he wants to serve some of the needs of our young children. He wants to challenge others to give donations to maybe even match something he’s given. It doesn’t have to be that amount, but he wants to match up to that amount if we can also do that within the year’s period,” said Superintendent Bruer. “It’s kids with needs. Kids need food, a backpack program, clothes, and glasses. You know, in today’s life, we look at all the inflationary increases a family’s got to go through, paying bills and stuff like that. Sometimes there’s not a lot left over for student shoes or something like this. So thank you, John, for that donation.“
Bruer said they are still working on how people can donate to the school district and see if they can match Proulx’s $50,000 donation. “We’re working through that process right now, and I would like them to call me. This is all private,” said Superintendent Bruer. “We can leave your name out of it if you so choose, but we’re getting this all formed on how we can make that donation because we’re working through the Edward Jones company to do this.”
STUDENT SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER ADDED
The school board added Halle Nicholas as a non-voting member. She will be a student representative on the board. Nicholas is also the student council president and a very active student-athlete. “They’ve been looking at this for quite a number of years, and I think this is a great choice. Hallie’s a great person to fit this board expectation. She’ll bring access and advisory to the board from the student council for all the students in the school district. She can also bring ideas from the students regarding activities or even schoolwork,” said Superintendent Bruer. “We figured that Halle was involved as a leader in the school for quite a number of years. She takes some college courses. She’s also a part of the Polk County Public Health Collaborative.”
CONSENT AGENDA
The board approved the consent agenda, which included several personnel items, including the resignations of Hollie Pierson as an instructional assistant at Highland School and Lori Wagner as a paraprofessional at Highland School.
The board approved the employment of Katelynn Nordine, Victoria Bahr, and Kelsey Fredrick as paraprofessionals, Macen Heisler as a success coach-math aide at the high school, Shelly Kappelhoff as a kindergarten aide, Carmen Caputo’s status change from Kitchen Helper to paraprofessional, and Brandi Nesseth’s overload agreement as an ECSE teacher.
MORE DONATIONS
The board also approved over $41,000 in donations, including $19,890 from the Pirate Fine Arts Boosters (PFAB), $6,756.40 from Pirate Boosters for boys’ hockey jerseys, $14,366.40 from the Crookston Baseball Association for the softball field portable fencing for the turf, and $250 from an anonymous donor for dance uniforms. The PFAB donation is broken down to the following programs-
Visual Art – $8,500
Band – $2,225
Orchestra – $1545
Choir – $1,600
High School Music Department – $1,700 (for a Dampp Chaser)
Elementary Music – $1,750
Assistant Speech Coach – $1,100
Three Act – $1,500
MISCELLANEOUS-
The board approved a one-year contract with Wendy Ault, who will add HR and payroll duties to her job.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18 at 5:00 p.m.