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
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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