The Crookston School Board met in a Special Meeting on Monday, July 7 in the Crookston School District Office conference room in the high school.
The board reviewed applications for the Superintendent of Schools position, which was left open with Randall Bergquist’s resignation. “We ended up with 11 applicants and went through the pool, a strong pool,” says Chairperson Tim Dufault. “It took us a while to narrow it down, but we’ve honed it down to the final three candidates. After this, I will go give them a call and see if they are still interested.”
There were 11 applicants, but the board only reviewed 10 as one of the applicants had pulled their application out of the pool before the meeting for health-related reasons on Monday morning. The next step will be interviews, tentatively scheduled for Monday, July 14. The interviews will take place in two-hour time slots, after which the board will meet to decide.
Usually, the school board would utilize the Minnesota School Board Association for hiring, but with the time crunch to fill the position, they are doing the work themselves. “We are doing the search process on our own. It was just as easy to do it ourselves, quickly,” says Dufault. “Literally, the day we found out Dr. Bergquist was leaving, we posted. That was two weeks ago today, and here we are reviewing candidates. Another week from now, we could be interviewing candidates and having our Interim Superintendent picked. Three weeks is a pretty fast turnaround.”
The urgency, of course, is due in part to the Bergquist resignation, the Activities Directors, and now that of Matt Torgerson. Having the Superintendent in place makes the board feel more at ease when hiring the other positions that need to be filled. “There are a lot of dominoes that have fallen, and we need to fill a lot of spots, and as a board, we don’t want to make some of these Superintendent decisions without a Superintendent,” says Dufault. “That’s why we are going to wait and get a Superintendent in here, although we may start posting those positions so that when a Superintendent gets here, he’s got a pool of candidates to select from for those other open positions.”
Dufault did notify the board upon the meeting start that, per Minnesota law, they must have an Interim immediately to continue with any business. “Minnesota law says every school district has to have a licensed Superintendent on board, even when someone leaves,” says Dufault. “They don’t allow any wiggle room. Talking with the MSBA, I explained the timeline and how quickly we are trying, and he said, Well, you’re not going to be in trouble, but they recommended that we hire someone. I will give Dave Kuehn a call. I talked to him the other day, and he is willing to step in as the interim interim.”
The school board also unanimously accepted the letter of resignation from High School Principal Matt Torgerson. Torgerson has accepted the position of Principal at East Grand Forks Middle School.
