The Crookston School Board met on Tuesday evening for about 2.5 hours and approved the 2026-27 school year calendar and non-renewals. The meeting recap is below.
OPEN FORUM
The meeting started with the open forum, where seven people spoke to the board, sharing their concerns with the cutting of the three-year-old preschool and the closure of Washington School. The first person to speak to the board was Shawn Murphy, who said he is concerned about the process and the cutting of the three-year-old preschool. Murphy and many others were blindsided by the decision, which he feels will hurt the community. “We have to do something to flip this narrative that we have right now, and I don’t know the exact number, but it’s over 60% of the enrollment in our school district is at or below the poverty line. And when we cut something like that three-year-old program, and we close a school, and we take away that environment, we’re not going to do anything to attract new families, young families into our district, which is going to drive that percentage up higher, right?” said Murphy. “So we’re going to end up as a school district and as a community in a situation where our costs grow increasingly higher and higher every year, and our inputs are going to fall off the table. And my concern is what that looks like, not only for the district, but the city and moving forward. You know, I want to I live here and I want I want to have this community be something that my kids feel like they can always fall back on and or even start their own lives in. And right now, I don’t think we’re doing that.”
Gina Gunderson, Crookston Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) Coordinator, spoke to the board and went through information that differs from what the board gave to KROX and from what the board discussed at the last meeting, when they voted to close Washington School and cut the three-year-old preschool program. “I have not been a part of a lot of the conversations. And I just felt like I needed some clarification on some information,” said Gunderson. “I asked some questions about our three-year-old programming being cut, some cost discrepancies, and attendance rates. Our cost per student was shared on KROX after a working board session. And just, yeah, just some clarification on some things that were conflicting with the information that we have in our early childhood programming.”
Gunderson added that she has been frustrated while being left out of the entire process. “I have lived in this community for many, many years. We know that when we invest in young children, the return on investment is huge. For every dollar we spend on our youngest birth-to-five kiddos, the return on investment ranges from $3 to $17 as they learn and grow. It has been a hard, hard thing. To close Washington alone and then cut our three-year-old programming,” said Gunderson. “For the district, we have wonderful teachers. And so there are lots of great things happening. This is hard for our community. Our community will be impacted by these decisions. But, there are great things that happen in the community all the time. For our young kids, I could just go on and on. We have great parks. We have great activities. You know, there are great things happening at Highland. There are great things happening at the high school. We have lots of great things happening in Crookston. I will continue to advocate for that. It has just been frustrating.”
Kiely Tate, who is currently losing her job with the cut, spoke to the board about her frustration. Later in the meeting, Superintendent Randy Bruer said Tate will be able to apply for an opening when it becomes available in K through third grade, as a few spots will open up.
Suzie Larson, UMC Professor Aaron Rudolph, Brandi Nesseth, and Jenna Benoit all spoke. Benoit suggested they have a concrete plan in place before registration day, so families can decide where they want to send their kids.
INCREASED TUITION FOR PRESCHOOL
The board approved an increase in tuition for the four-year-old preschool program starting with the 2026-27 school year. Crookston charged $1,500 for the preschool program this year and will increase it to $2,250 for the 2026-27 school year after a unanimous 6-0 vote. A motion by board member Mike Theis to increase tuition to $3,000 next year died for lack of a second after fellow board member Jaclyn Tiedemann suggested keeping it at $2,250, as the jump to doubling tuition was too much.
2026-2027 SCHOOL YEAR CALENDAR APPROVED
The school board unanimously approved the 2026-27 school year calendar. School will start before Labor Day in the fall with classes beginning on September 1. There will be no school on Friday, September 4 or Monday (Labor Day) September 7. Christmas break will be December 21 through January 1, with classes resuming January 4, 2027. Graduation and the final day of classes will be Friday, May 28, 2027. “The legislature approved that we could start school before Labor Day next year and the year after. There are only so many days between Labor Day and Memorial Day that you can host school. Otherwise, you’d have a shortened Christmas vacation by quite a bit this year to make up those days,” said Superintendent Randy Bruer. “We sent surveys to the staff and had meetings throughout the year. We chose to go with a longer Christmas break.”
The approved calendar is pictured below at the bottom of the page.
APPROVAL OF NON-RENEWALS AND UNREQUESTED LEAVE
The board had roll-call votes on five personnel items on the agenda. The first was a 5-1 vote to approve the non-renewal of Bobbie Jo Hebert as an Early Childhood Teacher. The no vote was by Marcia Meine.
The board voted unanimously to approve the non-renewal of Emma Morlan and Rachel Thompson as special ed teachers. “Tier 1 and your Tier 2 teachers are not tenured teachers. A lot of times, they get a 2-year license, and then they have to renew it. You have to post it again. So we’ve got to go through the process again,” said Superintendent Bruer. “But hopefully we’ll be re-signing them back on, and they’ve got to renew their license.”
They voted unanimously to place Kiely Tate on an unrequested leave of absence. “She’s a qualified teacher, but right now the teacher contract tells us that they are a separate unit as the ECFE, Early Childhood Program,” said Superintendent Bruer. “So we have openings that are going to come up. We heard one tonight already. We’re going to probably have one or two more, and she’ll be able to apply for that position when it becomes available.”
The board also approved the non-renewal of Shelly Kappellhoff as an instructional assistant.
KROX will have more from the Crookston School Board meeting tomorrow.
