Star Tribune
Minneapolis school board likely won’t fill superintendent job until 2024
Minneapolis families and community members have a chance to weigh in this week on what they want in their next school district superintendent, who likely now won’t be hired before next school year.
The school board’s superintendent search committee voted Tuesday to delay the search for a new district leader until the fall of 2023, saying the added time allows for more community input.
That decision, opposed by Board Members Lori Norvell, Kim Ellison and Collin Beachy, came as an amendment to a resolution to hire the executive firm BWP & Associates to lead the superintendent search for no more than $40,000. BWP won’t start its search efforts until next September, the board decided.
The board will vote in February to extend Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox’s position. Cox was not at Tuesday’s meeting, but Board Chair Sharon El-Amin said Cox had agreed to the extension if that’s what the board decided.
Norvell and Beachy pushed back against the delay, saying the current board was tasked with finding a superintendent for this year.
“I don’t want to stay in limbo again,” Beachy said. “I’m not comfortable in slowing down.”
Despite the change in the timeline, the district will host the rest of a dozen listening sessions through Saturday that will inform its pick for its next leader.
A survey asking what community members, staff and students want the next district leader to focus on is also open until Jan. 23.
The feedback will be presented to BWP to inform the superintendent search. Both the survey and the input sessions focus on elements of the district’s strategic plan and ask participants where they want the new superintendent to focus. Possible topics include academics, student well-being and overall school climate and culture.
That approach differs from the one taken to aid in the district’s 2016 superintendent search, said Radious Guess, managing partner of EPU Consultants, the company that led the community input effort back then and is doing the same this time.
In 2016, the listening sessions focused more on the leadership and personality qualities of the leader the community wanted.
“This year is really about the strategic priorities,” Guess said. “The board only hires one person — the superintendent — so they want authentic engagement to hold themselves accountable to constituents.”
Still, gathering such authentic feedback can be difficult, said Greg King, a parent who attended the Washburn listening session last week. Some parts of the strategic plan that were up for discussion included terms or details King and other parents weren’t familiar with.
“If we want the district to do better, we have to be part of these events,” he said. “But the structure can make it hard to give that true feedback.”
Guess noted two other challenges, too: the weather and a tight timeframe.
“I do wish we’d started this in the summer,” she said. “It’s hard to do this work in the winter and get good attendance.”
The first input session drew only a handful of board members and just one parent. The second one — at Washburn — had about two dozen attendees.
But more than 4,000 people have filled out the online survey, Guess said.
The board members who supported delaying the search said they want to hear from more families.
“I do not feel like we have yet figured out how to engage our community in the way that the community deserves to be engaged for a decision with this scope and level of importance,” said Board Member Sonya Emerick before voting to push the superintendent search into next school year.
Upcoming community listening sessions
- Wednesday, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Emerson Dual Language School, 1421 Spruce Pl., Minneapolis - Thursday, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Division of Indian Work, 1001 E. Lake St., Minneapolis - Friday, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
North High School, 1500 N. James Av., Minneapolis - Saturday, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Urban Ventures, 2924 S. 4th Av., Minneapolis
The Minnesota State Patrol has identified the motorist whose SUV hit a school bus taking kids to their Iron Range school.
The patrol said 19-year-old Svea Lynn Snickers, of Alborn, Minn., ran a stop sign at the intersection and hit the bus as it headed north on Hwy. 5. She was last reported to be in critical condition.
The collision occurred just east of Hibbing about 7:50 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Hwy. 5 and Town Line Road, according to the State Patrol.
All 21 children heading to Cherry School suffered minor injuries when the bus flipped over about 7 miles southwest of its destination, the patrol said. The school serves about 600 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, and students of all ages were on the bus, said St. Louis County Schools Superintendent Reggie Engebritson.
A witness told Hibbing police that students were able to crawl out of the bus on their own.
Snickers suffered critical injuries, was extricated from the wreckage by emergency responders and taken by air ambulance to Essentia Hospital in nearby Virginia, according to police.
The bus driver, 52-year-old Shawn Allen Lindula, of Iron, Minn., was expected to survive his injuries.
Star Tribune staff writer Jana Hollingsworth contributed to this report.
St. Louis Park will soon require landlords to give renters more notice before they file for evictions over late payments.
The city currently requires landlords to give tenants notice seven days before they file for eviction. Starting in November, landlords will have to give 30 days notice and use a form prepared by the city.
“This is a tough ordinance,” Council Member Lynette Dumalag, the only person to vote against the change, said during a meeting this week. “At least for me, personally, I felt that it pit those that care about affordable housing against one another.”
In public hearings and other forums, city leaders heard from renters who said the current requirements didn’t give them enough time to scrape together payments if they face a sudden hardship, such as losing a job. They also heard from at least one landlord who said he might have to increase deposits because he already struggles to make ends meet when renters fall behind on payments.
The change passed 4 to 1. Council Member Tim Brausen and Mayor Nadia Mohamed were absent.
PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — Ryan Leckner has resigned as Mayor of Park Rapids and the city council has officially declared a vacancy.
City Administrator Angel Weasner said councilmembers will hold a workshop on Sept. 24 to determine how to proceed. They can fill the vacancy by appointment or hold a special election, which Leckner said seems unlikely given that the November general election is just around the corner.
Until then, Leckner said “we’re thinking that we’ll just be able to get by with just one less council member.”
He added that Councilmember Liz Stone would likely serve as acting mayor until voters hit the polls.
Former Park Rapids Mayor Pat Mikesh is running uncontested for Leckner’s now-vacant seat.
In 2018, Mikesh stepped down a month before the election and Leckner successfully ran as a write-in candidate.
Leckner first joined the council in 2015 and is ending his third, two-year term as mayor early because his family built a home outside city limits. Construction of the home in Henrietta Township, and the sale of his existing home in Park Rapids, all happened faster than expected, he said.
“My term was up in November anyways,” he said, “so I was kind of planning on just not running.”
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