Candidate forum for NRHEG Board of Education proves lively event
By REED WALLER
Staff Writer
On Thursday, Oct. 8, a School Board Candidate Forum was held where the candidates could speak on the issues before the election.
On Nov. 3, three school board positions will be up for four-year terms.
There are seven candidates including two incumbents, Karen Flatness and Dan Schmidt (Flatness was unavailable for the forum). JoAnn Maloney will be running unopposed for a two-year term.
New candidates running are Jennifer Johnson, Tami Tufte-LaCanne, Loren Schoenrock, Nancy Lageson, and former Curriculum Director Terri Engel.
Mark Domeier moderated.
Introductions
Jennifer Johnson:
“I've lived in New Richland for 17 years. I currently live on my husband's family farm 3 miles north of town. We have 4 children. 2 of them have graduated from NRHEG and 2 are current students at NRHEG. I work in Owatonna as an insurance agent.
“Joining a board, be it a school board, fair board, or church board, is like jumping on a moving train. The other members have been working very busily together to form a vision and they have goals. I want to jump on that train.”
Tami Tufte-LaCanne:
“We lived outside the district when my oldest started to attend, but years later, knowing how great of a district NRHEG is to be in, open enrolled them. About 5 years ago my family moved up just west of Ellendale. I have been a mortgage lender for 20 plus years and have negotiation skills. I was on the PTO, foundation work, and I'm a faith formation teacher. Accountability is something that I'd like to see. I’d like to speak for the stakeholders.
Dan Schmidt:
“I am choosing to rerun because I still feel that I have a lot to give to the district that has given so much to me. I have a lot of pride in our district and I want to see that instilled throughout all 4 communities in that we are one. We should be one community, not 4. We have a lot going on currently with budget issues in regards to the referendum as well as the COVID we're dealing with. There's a lot to be done yet and I still want to be a part of that.”
Loren Schoenrock:
“I’ve lived in New Richland my entire life. My wife Marlene taught in the school district for 30 plus years. I've been educated in this building, and as I walk the halls, it brings back a lot of childhood memories. This building provided me with the education and the experiences that got me this far in life, and I would consider it a privilege and an honor to give back to this district the many opportunities that it has given me throughout my life.”
Nancy Lageson:
“Reasons why I believe I'm qualified: I'm a fierce advocate of public education; I've been involved in the city, county and state levels and I bring decades of professional public service to this position. The majority of my professional career has centered around children and the education system. I’m recently retired; my last position was the Waseca County Emergency Management Director. I’m also a retired police officer, and was director of the Minnesota School Safety Center. I hold an MA in Educational Leadership from St. Mary’s University, an AA in Criminal Justice from Minneapolis Community College, and a BA in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.”
Terry Engel:
“I began my teaching career in the Ellendale-Geneva school district and was part of the consolidation when we became NRHEG. I obtained two BA degrees: one in elementary education and the other in K-12 vocal music. Later in my career I completed an MA in Educational Leadership through St. Mary’s University and spent the last four years working closely with administrators and staff, focusing on student achievement, teacher development and updating curriculum.
“One statement from our Strategic Plan that I’d like to make one of my goals is ‘a system of personal accountability to include the school board, administration, staff, students, parents, and the community.’ It’s important that we find ways to increase our student enrollment, increase student achievement and employ high quality licensed teachers and educational leaders. We must also meet the social and emotional needs of our students. Schools have changed drastically since we were in school, so we must look at our challenges through a new lens.”
What do you feel are the specific strengths of the NRHEG school district?
Nancy Lageson:
“I moved here eight years ago. But for 35 years we’d been coming to Ellendale to my husband’s family farm, and watching the communities and how they supported each other. Everyone goes to the different businesses to make sure they all stay in place; everybody knows each other. The biggest strength is the support they have within the community for each other. Even with three counties, four cities, even with that there’s an understanding of the community. I’d be proud to be part of that.”
Terri Engel:
“I feel the specific strength of NRHEG is the staff and teachers. They’re what I’ve worked with most closely for 34 years. Our teachers are resilient. Loss of teachers, consolidation, they have lived through, and numerous administration changes, and they have always risen to the occasion. They are fabulous people, and now with this COVID I see them just digging in again. I also think our support staff, our secretaries in our school buildings are second to none. And I think our students are second to none, when I think of my grandson going through COVID, and honestly he wants to be at school. What is wonderful to see is these little kids just coming to school; they wear their masks all day. they follow the rules. they do what they're told, and they’re just doing that without complaining.”
Loren Schoenrock:
“The first one that comes to my mind is the facility that we have here; I believe it’s second to none. With the new addition of that and the referendum that was passed this past spring, I think we have a facility here that can be the rival of any district around, whether it be a small town or even a Metro town. I also believe our staff is second to none, and they're working very hard through this trying time with COVID. Not only the staff here at the school, but the support staff, bus drivers, everybody along with the school board has done a tremendous amount of work to get through this COVID situation. One of the other strengths that I see here is that the people of these communities have come together as one community, I think the communities jelled very well.”
Tami Tufte-LaCanne:
“The biggest strength that brought us here was the education received as well as the staff. Also the small numbers. I didn't go to a small school such as NRHEG, so to come from a school where you basically were a number, and then to have a name, that is a good thing to walk down the hall and have.”
Dan Schmidt:
“First and foremost the staff from the top on down. I think we're finding out just how good a staff we have here. It also speaks volumes that we have such a large number of teachers who have graduated from here and have chosen to “come home.” And finally I feel we've been conscientious of the taxpayers. As it pertains to needing more, we’ve tried to do everything we can without having to constantly go out and look for more.”
Jennifer Johnson:
“One of the strengths our district holds is that we're not just four communities; I look at it as about eight communities: Matawan's a community, Waldorf’s a community, Hollandale, Clarks Grove. We have kids that come from those places, along with Hartland, Ellendale, New Richland and Geneva, and to take eight communities and pull together as one. You don't ever see that separation at sports events, but that's something that we should be really proud of, that we come together and you don't hear people say "Oh, they're the Ellendale people" or "They're the Geneva people." It's NRHEG. And we should be proud of that.”
What do you feel are the top priorities facing the school district that we need to address in our school district over the next 5 years?
Terri Engel:
“With COVID and the ever moving amount of monies that you get from the state each year, it's especially important to look at a 5 year plan. I do believe that the next 5 years coming up are going to be challenging financially. It's important to retain and attract high quality teachers for our school district. There aren't as many teachers applying for jobs here at our school district. As time goes on might become a challenge. I think we need to have an increased platform for communications. I think we should have increased technology. I think there should be Facebook, Twitter, and all of those things.”
Loren Schoenrock:
“I see 4 things that I would consider a priority. First is excess levy referendum that's coming up. The second is to continue to attract the top staff in our district; we have quality teachers and we want to maintain that quality. Third is the facility. Our students need to have the facility that prepares them for their future. And fourth, we need to continue to attract students to open enroll because that helps our school district by being able to offer more classes and I believe with the facility that we have we have the opportunity.”
Tami Tufte-LaCanne:
“My top priority especially after COVID and what we're dealing with now, is going to be teacher and staff retention. What has been thrown at them over the last 6 months has been unheard of. I can't even imagine being a teacher in this world. Say okay, we're gonna distance learn and everybody's going to have the same access to the internet, everybody's gonna have the same access to computers, so technology is a really big deal in today's world. With that said the parental and community involvement I think needs to be a priority. If we go to the big box stores and we buy the big box and we don't support local, we're gonna have our locals close up. And if our locals close up, there goes our community, there goes our parental involvement and there go our students.”
Dan Schmidt:
“Teacher retention now more than ever. We have the tools in place as a district to be able to understand why we've lost some teachers, so now we can move forward and do a much better job of staying on top of that. Tying into the budget really is, as Terri said, marketing. I felt for a long time that we can always do better marketing our district. We need marketing as a full time thing. And finally just student achievement. That should be never-ending.”
Jennifer Johnson:
“A big thing that I worry about is after COVID there's kids that fell through the cracks. They don't have that interaction as much as they did.”
Nancy Lageson:
“Teacher retention. They're working twice as hard as they ever have in their career and they’re feeling every pain, every ounce of every family every kid. In a class you can try to see and meet the needs of these, and parents are sending notes, when you're trying to do it distantly. It's just it's amazing what they're doing. On top of that, my son-in-law is a child psychologist and he's seen in the last 4-5 months that we're missing the mental health issues. Of kids that normally are pretty resilient are starting to feel they're taking on this whole COVID thing as their responsibility to fix it.”
We anticipate problems from state aid coming because of the budget concerns at the state level. Along with our current deficit spending and budgets under review every year, how do you think the district can address this potential difficulty over the next few years?
Loren Schoenrock:
“There's some hard decisions that have to be made. We have to make decisions in a way that will not hurt the education of our students. Maybe it's going to have to be a little bit larger class size for a few years. Maybe we're going to have to trim certain areas that we don't really want to. All those decisions need a lot of research. You have to make the right decision and you don't do that on the spur of the moment.”
Tami Tufte-LaCanne:
“Let's look at overhead. Is there something that doesn't directly touch or affect them that maybe we can take a deep dive into? Because anything that has to do directly with our children I think we need to to protect that as faithfully as we can.”
Dan Schmidt:
“Going into the 2020-2021 school year we cut a little over $160,000 out of our budget without touching programs. We tried to get down to the bare bones on everything that we could. There were surveys that went out in 2016 and 2018, in which the communities were able to address what they felt were priorities that we should work within. I believe that we have followed those to the best of our ability. We're not dealing with the private sector business here. We can't just raise the rates to try to increase that revenue, so we do have to look at other options. Which is to sell the referendum here.”
Jennifer Johnson:
“I truly believe that our past and present boards have looked at a lot of things, and if elected I would go into the next board and hear what they've thought of in the past and think of what we can do in the future, and if there's new board members maybe there's new ideas that will come to light. But It's a difficult thing; we don’t want to take away from our kids.”
Nancy Lageson:
“Maybe this is what Terry said earlier about marketing and communication with the district and community. Businesses that I have seen will put together money and programs and have these fundraisers for just certain things, and you see parents sending pens and pencils and crayons and Kleenex to that classrooms because they're all just trying to pitch in. But in this case, like this latest referendum, the phraseology is like per pupil dollar, so much money for people and that's how much it has to come up to. Somehow you have to get the community understanding that it's not like every child is going to get some money. It's for kitchen utilities and for staff and for the cooks and the janitors and custodial staff, the teachers, the administrators. All that money is spread around. It's this big pot sell, so somehow we have to.”
Terri Engel:
“This is one area that if elected that I would have to take some classes in. I think our past boards have done a good job of trying to be fiscally responsible, but I also think sometimes there are people we work with who have a lot of really good ideas, so it might be interesting to sit down with them, so here’s another committee. I think getting more students in our district would be helpful because the more kids you have the more more money that's coming into our district.”
MARK DOMEIER
Our next question. Our students are consistently given the message they need to strive for their best in all things, not just settle for doing the minimal in order to get by. Do you feel that this school district's programs and actions match those expectations?
TAMI
I agree wholeheartedly with not allowing the students to just do what they can to get by. But if we expect a student to turn an assignment in on a Tuesday, we should expect the teacher to have it graded by a certain day. That expectation is in one of our handbooks. We do a good job of pumping up our students, but I feel we can do better. Again the staff is very overworked, as are our students, so if we still expect them to do their best, I think we should hold our administrators and our staff to do their best as well.
DAN
Based on the way we currently sit, yes, I feel that we do match those. But I still believe we have room for improvement. We’ve taken some steps with students and staff, with the new science rooms and the new shop. Those are facilities and programs that I think will help those students get to that next level. But there's always more to do. And community-wise, I think we can do more. We can get community businesses involved with our district. I currently serve on the C. T. E. board and of course we haven't been able to meet recently, but they’re always throwing out ideas on things we should be doing with businesses, whether it be work study or making things more accessible to the students. In the trades, there's a shortage of people big time, and I don't know if students realize just how good a job those can be.
JENNIFER
This is just one thing, we live in a rural area, farming is huge, and my husband talks about the days when they took the trucks out to the fields they got the corn and did the corn drive. I'd really like to see our school go back a little bit in time to when they were getting educated from the farmers, and putting a little bit of work into it. We need to keep our farmers around.
NANCY
In terms of the elementary school, those teachers are incredible. Every child is attended to in every classroom we were in. It would be great to have a volunteer coordinator – that’s one of the biggest things going on in society right now – people retired a little early, but are available to come in and help others. There are a lot of people who are willing to do it, but they're not sure how to get involved. My husband and I went in just to read with second graders; a few weeks later we were also working in a kindergarten classroom, then mentoring individual kids.
TERRI
It’s easier to make sure the needs of the kids in the elementary are met, because you have that class all day long. But when the kids come over here, things change and it's frustrating for staff. I hear them say, ‘We're doing everything; I don't know why the kids won't do this.’ Some of the kids who have been struggling in the elementary come over here, and they're still struggling, but it's different here; teachers don't have that same classroom all the time. I think we need to make a concerted effort to meet the needs of those children and take that off the teachers’ plates. I think we need to keep looking at ways to have the kids want to strive to do better and not just get a D. How do we get them to want to do more? It's easy for the high achievers, but then you have that other group who fall through the cracks.
LOREN
I think it starts first with the students themselves. They need to have the attitude that they want to be the best. And I think we have a staff here that encourages that. There are cars in the secondary parking lot many times after hours. Saturdays, Sundays, early mornings, there are cars parked here. And that tells me that our staff is interested, doing their part to encourage those students to be their best. Also the community needs to support the students when they interact with them out in the community. It's a team approach. The whole team needs to encourage the students and the staff to do their best.
There's been a big problem for the last decade with a large turnover among our teachers and paras for various reasons. What can this district do to change that trend, and not just attract, but retain those quality educators?
DAN
We have a a tool now to track that better, so we have a better feel for why people are leaving. We need to keep showing support. This is a teamwork deal. Paras, teachers are under tough times right now with all we're going through. Parents are finding out just what it is you guys have to deal with, because they're thrust into that role now as well. So having sat in on negotiations, we know what you guys need and we need to be here to give you as much of that as we can.
JENNIFER
My thought would be to ask any teacher or staff member why they're leaving, in hopes that they would be honest. And ask other districts that we see that are keeping their people and what they're doing to be able to keep their staff. And ask the ones that are leaving what could be done, and if possible we’ll do those things to keep them.
NANCY
We all know this is a universal problem. Of course exit interviews are crucial. What I've learned is that it's not that teachers are leaving our district to go to another district or to get another $2000 a year; they're leaving the profession. So many people are retiring right now. The largest group of teachers in the history of our country have now hit that stage. The most you can do is to be collected and to support these teachers and to listen to them and let them have a voice.
TERRI
What Nancy said is correct; teachers aren’t just leaving our district, they're leaving the profession. One of the things that we have here is a mentoring program; that is very important for teachers. When you talk to the millennial group of teachers, they're very big on that. What kind of a mentoring program do you have, what kind of teachers support do you have? Another thing, we can all give more positive feedback to our new teachers, and our staff that are more seasoned. Also an incentive plan, so that when older, seasoned teachers do retire, we get them to give us that information earlier, so the principals can get the word out that there's going to be an opening. Because time is the most important factor there; those kids want a job and the sooner that we can interview the cream of the crop, the better.
LOREN
The staff needs to be shown support from the administration and the community. And they need to be encouraged to work together. If they feel they're part of the team, they'll feel more like staying in the district. But if they do decide to leave for retirement, there isn't much we can do. I think we can learn a lot from an exit interview. Was it something that wasn't offered here? And if there is, we can learn that there is a need that we’re not fulfilling.
TAMI
My view on this is going to be from the outside looking in; but I've been in the school system with the PTO and with my kids. There's been a change in morale even before COVID. As Terry alluded to, it's the transition from the elementary to the the junior high and high school, it's a change. What I can offer would be to ask questions. What do you need from the community? What do you need for the students? What do you need from the administration to make your job better?
Communication and social media. Should we expand on those areas? How would we do that? And how do we continue to make information available to the general public, who perhaps are not on social media?
JENNIFER
I do feel that Facebook is huge. It's free and it gets out to a lot of people. But I see a lot of elderly, and there are some techie grandparents, but there are some who aren't. And often they are the biggest supporters. Also I feel for newspapers, because if we all moved to social media, that leaves our newspapers with nothing. I know kids love seeing something up on Facebook with their picture. But I really think kids will enjoy seeing their face in the newspaper and people sitting back and seeing things that are going on, so its good to find a balance between them.
NANCY
With the social media piece, IT and social media, we're halfway there; we’re doing distance learning, so every family that's involved in the school district is already getting social media updates. I think the disconnects come when your kid turns 19 and they're like, ‘What was going on at school?’ and you hear nothing; once in a while you read the superintendent's letter in the paper. How do you get the community to know what's going on and to feel involved? You need to have a newsletter; it's not that expensive; it can be done, and you could have staff contribute and everyone that works for the district, and students at every grade level. A simple little newsletter printed out once every couple weeks and then pass it off to businesses.
(NRHEG did issue a quarterly newsletter published by the Star Eagle until a few years ago. ¬RW)
TERRI
I think that if we could get on Twitter and Facebook and have someone who could work in conjunction with the district office to get big items out there and flood social media with all the good that's going on. The newsletter would be great. There could be a committee of kids who that's what they want to do, in high school and the elementary, going back to the days of the student council. I think it should also be given to the newspaper to publish it, so we're not taking away from them. But it's important to talk about the good things that are happening at school, and maybe 2 to 4 times a year, we should have a gathering at the schools. We could work with the PTO and if you have food they will come. (laughter) If we could just get the community here, and I know it's not going to happen now with COVID, but if we get the food and get them here and just expand on that sense of community, I think that would be a really good thing.
LOREN
If we can use Facebook or whatever it would be an excellent opportunity. The school website has a phenomenal amount of information, and I don't know if that's ever been promoted to the extent that it should be. But as Nancy and Terry mentioned, not everybody is on social media or has access to the website, So maybe we need to have a quarterly newsletter. Because everyone needs to be informed, most of all if they don't have Internet. Maybe it doesn't have to be quarterly. But we can communicate with them; there's still snail-mail.
TAMI
Bullet points. If you send an email or send a newsletter you bullet-point it. If you're gonna send an email, send a link that will take you to the school website. You can read more about it if that particular item is something that interests you. I think the newsletter is great. Could it be a class? For those kids who are going into journalism or marketing? Maybe they have a school Facebook - obviously monitored because who knows what would go on it (laughter) - but they could do interviews. And maybe when we get to have Farm City Days or Ellendale Days or when Geneva has their fireman thing, maybe you have a volunteer in a booth for the school. If we do a newsletter, put those at Lerberg's and Wagner's and the post office in Geneva, or call and we'll put you on a mailing list.
DAN
An emphatic yes for me in terms of the social media presence. I don't feel there's any better way of advertising out there right now. Aside from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, getting word out to the general public. I think we do a fairly decent job right now. Dr Carlson puts a letter every month in the paper. Not everybody either gets it or reads it, but he does put it out there. We can always do more. The newsletter ideas are wonderful. There are so many ways to get information out to the public and I believe we need to look into each and every one of those possible ways.
Do you have a vision for getting citizens of all our communities and in the surrounding area more involved, and in conjunction with that, how important is it to have members from all of our communities as part of our school board? Is there a way to do that or is that something that we need to be concerned about?
NANCY
Right back to where I was about the volunteer program. I have run into people who start chattering about how fun it would be to work with the students, but they’re never quite sure how. I think we're back to the newsletter again. And all communities part of the school board, I agree. We need representation from all areas. I think the elementary school feels Ellendale gets left out because there’s twice as many students and a larger population in NR than the other areas. That's part of the reason I'm running. ‘Okay, I'm here to represent the other half,’ and it's really important to keep both counties working together.
TERRI
I think the more we can communicate the needs of the schools and volunteers that we need, it would be good. It would be nice to have more volunteers in the elementary, but to start the volunteer program here at the secondary school would be a good thing too, because not only do they sit and read with the kids, but they can take some of the secretarial jobs for the teachers, so their prep time could be used to do something else other than run off copies, or put up a bulletin board for you or something like that. As far as members from all communities, I’m a huge proponent of that. That's why I'm running. I wish there was a way that we could say on our board, there's 2 from Geneva, 2 from Ellendale, 2 from Hartland, 2 from New Richland, so that no area is left out.
LOREN
Getting people involved is a challenge because everyone is busy, their schedules are all full, but if they see a reason to become involved, they will be. As far as members from the different communities, I believe a good school board member represents the district. Not a school board member of New Richland or Ellendale or Geneva or Hartland, but a school board member of NRHEG school district. And I think I could do that, I can represent people of all of our towns. That's a sign of a good school board member.
TAMI
Although we are all one district, all of those communities aren’t fully represented, because if you’re a New Richland person on the school board, do you know the concerns of the busing situation that the Clarks Grove, Hartland and Geneva people know? Are you there talking to them or are you intermixing it, are you really talking with every representation of every community throughout the district? We should have spread representation to make sure that we are doing our best for every student no matter where they are residing.
DAN
I've long felt that there still remains a little bit of a divide between the communities as it pertains to New Richland-Hartland and Ellendale-Geneva. There’s still some of the Old Guard that looks at it as 2 separate entities, and we're not, and we haven't been technically since 1994, so we are one, but yet we're such a large district that it absolutely benefits to have representation everywhere. Getting volunteers is a challenge in general. All you can really do honestly is just get the information out to them, what you're looking for, why this is a benefit. It goes back to the marketing piece. Get as much information to them as you can and make it as appealing as possible.
JENNIFER
I love the idea if you could have members from every area. How we could do that with our school board I don't know. Tt would have to be passed. The problem is, what happens when you have nobody in Hartland that wants to come up and represent Hartland? You can’t have an empty board seat.
If you were elected to the school board, how will you become more involved in the district and how will you find ways to make informed decisions that impact both of our school sites?
TERRI
I always hear teachers saying ‘We want the board to be at the school,’ so I would be visible at the schools and talk with teachers and support staff and administration about things that are happening at the school. I'm comfortable at this because of my background. And I like to hear all the facts. I would do research to make sure that I would be making decisions that are informed, and that are fiscally responsible as well as reflecting everyone in our district.
LOREN
I would become more involved in school activities to see what's going on in the school itself. I'd be more than happy to entertain any call, any contact, whatever, of any concern that anybody in the district has that needs to be addressed by the school board. My ears would always be open and I would be willing to hear your opinion. Even though it may not be what the board decides, it would still be presented because I will carry it to the board.
TAMI
I would become more involved just by being here, being available, being open and honest with everyone. I’m really good at asking questions. If I don't understand something, I'm gonna ask a question. I'm not afraid to give my opinion, and I'm not afraid to hear your opinion if it differs from mine. Research is a big thing. The collaboration with other board members, with teachers and staff, with students and parents, all goes to make an informed decision, when you listen to every single stakeholder in every single facet.
DAN
I know so many teachers who have opened their classroom to us to come in and sit down. For years, I said I need to do that, and not because of my kids, but just because. Unfortunately we don't always have the time, because most of us have other jobs that pull us at the times when it would be beneficial to be in the classroom. I'm extremely visible and I can be reached at the drop of a hat to be at the school as soon as needed. Learning more – there's things we’re encountering now after 4 years that I haven't seen before. It's never-ending, because we're not here every day to absorb it as the staff is, so there's things that come up that are wow, okay, how do we tackle this? All you can do is ask the questions and try to get involved as best you can.
JENNIFER
One thing I think would be great is to be available at conferences. Teachers are available for the students, but how about having the board members be available for the students, the parents, the teachers?
NANCY
I will continue to volunteer in elementary school and respond to email. And beware the ‘squeaky wheel,’ because sometimes the most outspoken and the loudest, you’re thinking they're speaking for the majority and they are not. To be observant and open minded and objective, that's just crucial in this role. I would love to go back into the classrooms, especially the high school level, and talk about law enforcement and juvenile justice and school safety. I haven't done that in years and I loved that, and kids like it, too, and that's a way to be involved.
VOTE
VOTE on November 3, for the board members of your choice and for the referendum.