The Crookston Public School Board met for a special meeting on Wednesday afternoon in the Crookston High School District Office Conference Room.
MAIN AGENDA
The board began the meeting by scheduling the canvassing of the election results from February 14’s election for the public multiuse facility referendum. The board then began discussing their next steps for the outdoor multiuse complex. The main subject was that the school was starting to try and purchase specific items for the referendum.
“Today, we let the board know that we’ve already started trying to find some items. What happens with some of the items, which would be the track surface, the bleachers, the press box, and the artificial turf, we work with different entities that provide state contracts, so we don’t have to go out and bid,” Interim Superintendent Dave Kuehn explained. “Usually, for these companies, by being part of the state bid, they also offer some discounts, so we’re hoping to get some very competitive pricing for those three areas. For the other items, the lighting, fencing, dirt work, and concessions stand area will be bid out and part of more of the construction part. For those main core pieces would be purchased, and we can hopefully get some good, competitive prices through this opportunity to use state bid process.”
The school currently doesn’t have a proper timeline for its completion. Keuhn shared that the school could hold some potential matches for football or soccer games by the fall, but the track would not be ready even by the spring of 2024.
Selecting Superintendent finalists
The board finished the meeting by making decisions about the finalists for the first round of interviews for the next superintendent for the district. The board invited Lee Warren of the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA), who presented that three candidates had given their profiles to the Association, and after reviewing them, they recommended one specific candidate. However, one of the candidates had taken a job at another district which left the board only with two. Warren gave them three suggestions on what they should do with their search, the first being to move forward with interviewing the candidates they had. Another option they had was to extend their application deadline by three weeks to allow any other candidates to apply for the job, as several other districts had ended their searches, leaving many candidates still searching for the job. The final option was to have the school suspend its search back to the MSBA, and they would reopen it again in the fall.
“The board didn’t feel comfortable with just the two, and we didn’t want to extend the search because, in three weeks, we figured what more would we get that hadn’t applied the first time. So, the other option we had was to suspend the search for the superintendent for another year until next fall,” School Board Chairperson Frank Fee explained. “The Minnesota School Board Association will conduct that search with no extra charge because of that. So we voted unanimously to do that and will start in October or November of next year looking for a full-time Superintendent, and hopefully, the pool will be bigger, and we will be able to find someone who will fit our needs.”
A news release by the Minnesota School Board Association can be seen below-
Crookston, MN — The Crookston School Board has voted to suspend the search for their next superintendent due to a lack of applicants. The board action included securing an interim superintendent to serve the district for the 2023 – 2024 school year.
The School Board will begin the search process again late next fall with their intention to secure a new superintendent beginning in July of 2024.
The board also agreed that with the passing of the public referendum on Tuesday, the time wouldn’t be proper for the school to hire a new superintendent right away. “We have a whole big new project coming up, we stick a new Superintendent in there, and the project of Washington moving over to Highland and that new addition over there,” said Fee. “It’s just too much to hit a new Superintendent with, so we’re going to look for an interim Superintendent, and hopefully, we’ll find the right match for that.”
The board approved the motion unanimously.
The Crookston School Board will next meet for another Special meeting on Thursday, February 23, at 4:00 p.m. in the Crookston High School District Office Conference Room.
