3M and Discovery Education recently announced ten finalists for the “3M Young Scientist Challenge.”

The competition “recognizes scientific thinking, communication and curiosity in students grades 5-8 who demonstrate a passion for solving everyday problems that could ultimately improve lives around the world,” according to a news release from 3M.

Hundreds of students from across the nation submitted short videos to explain the science behind their proposed innovations. Ten individuals — five boys and five girls between ages 9 and 14 — were selected as finalists.

“I was in shock and really surprised,” said 13-year old finalist Caroline Crouchley, of Garden City, N.Y. “I didn’t think I was going to win.”

Crouchley was interested in pollution and climate change, so her project provides a way for trains to run on renewable energy.

Each finalist will work with a scientist from 3M through a virtual mentorship program to transform the students’ concepts into prototypes.

All 10 students will receive $1,000 and participate in a final competition at 3M’s Innovation Center in St. Paul Oct. 28 and 29.

The winner will be named “America’s Top Young Scientist,” receive $25,000 and go on a destination trip of choice.

In a highly competitive job market with a shortage of skilled workers, sometimes it is easier for companies to train existing employees for more sophisticated positions.

That’s what 60 Minnesota firms will do with nearly $3 million in state dual-training grants under the PIPELINE Program. Short for, “Private Investment, Public Education, Labor and Industry Experience” PIPELINE is designed to help businesses find, train and retain workers with specialized skills.

“There’s a tremendous workforce shortage in every occupation, but nowhere more than nursing,” said Peggy Black, foundation director for Cerenity Senior Care, which has locations in White Bear Lake and on St. Paul’s west side.

Cerenity is receiving $132,000 in grant money to help 18 employees become licensed practical nurses. Four others will earn culinary certifications.

The state helps covers tuition, books and fees and means those workers can get degrees or advanced training at little or no cost. Cerenity is also providing funding to help cover tuition costs.

This is a marvelous opportunity for our employees,” said Black, who noted that many of the employees eligible for the training would have no way to pay for it without the state grants.

The difference in pay between a nursing assistant and a licensed practical nurse is $10 per hour at Cerenity. “It will be life-changing for some of these people,” Black said.

PROGRAM GOALS

In addition to filling job vacancies, boosting workers is a big goal of the program, Dennis Olson, higher education commissioner, said when the grants were announced in late June.

“We are hearing remarkable stories of employees not only completing their education, but also being promoted and prepared for supervisory positions as the result of the PIPELINE program,” Olson said. “Dual-training grants are a successful model for both the employee and the employer.”

Nancy Leppink, Department of Labor and Industry commissioner, agreed PIPELINE is an important tool that qualifying businesses can use to help valuable workers advance their careers.

Four growing, high-demand industries — advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care services, and information technology — are eligible for the grant program.

“Apprenticeships and dual training continue to be important training models that successfully assist employers recruit and retain employees,” Leppink said.

The Minnesota Legislature established dual-training grants in 2015 to support the PIPELINE program. This is the eighth time the grants have been awarded and the program has been expanding with 667 workers receiving assistance this round.

THE PROGRAM AT WORK

Apple Tree Dental is one of the newest grant recipients. The 34-year-old provider has two Twin Cities locations and specializes in serving underserved populations.

Of Apple Tree’s 35,000 patients, about 87 percent are on medical assistance and many have special needs, said Mary Larkin, development and marketing director. That also means the nonprofit struggles to hire enough dental assistants in a highly competitive job market.

More workers with better training means Apple Tree will be able to help more patients, Larkin said. They also hope to recruit underrepresented groups to the profession.

“It expands access to care,” Larkin said. “That’s what we are trying to do.”

A judge has allowed a discrimination lawsuit against St. Paul Public Schools to move forward, finding that a teacher’s comments linking two African-American students’ behavior to the educational achievement gap were “sufficiently severe and offensive” to allege a civil rights violation.

Dennis Verrett Jr. sued the district last year over remarks that Expo Elementary teacher James Hinkley made near the end of the 2016-17 school year.

When two African-American students were socializing instead of focusing on school work, Hinkley asked them what kind of students they wanted to be.

He then said that “the achievement gap is a horrible situation across the District and Minnesota and it’s based on skin color,” according to a written reprimand signed by his principal, Darren Yerama.

“Multiple students became upset, attributing this comment to singling out students based on race and their actions to the cause of the achievement gap,” the letter continued.

Verrett wrote that his fifth-grade daughter, who is African-American but was not one of the off-task students, left the class in tears. The family enrolled in a different district the following school year.

U.S. District Judge David Doty last week allowed the case to move forward on discrimination, human rights and equal protection claims, rejecting most of the district’s motion to dismiss it.

“The take-away from this experience for the entire young, fifth-grade class could very well have been that African-American students do not achieve academically at the same rate as white and other student groups because, as a group, African-American students are more prone to disruptive classroom behavior and academic failure,” Doty wrote.

“The fact that the comment came from the students’ science teacher, a significant authority figure, only compounds the severity of the incident and the trauma T.S.V. claims to have endured.”

The school district had argued Hinkley’s comments should be considered an isolated incident, not the sort of pervasive harassment that civil rights laws are meant for.

Hinkley is still employed as a St. Paul teacher but did not have an assignment last year and was not paid.

Minnesota State college students have the opportunity to get $2,500 or more through workforce-development scholarships this fall.

The Minnesota Legislature set aside the money for the scholarships, stemming from a pilot program it approved in 2017. At some locations, such as Century College and St. Cloud Technical & Community College, contributions from business and community partners have boosted the scholarships even more.

The scholarships are encouraging for students who previously didn’t think college was an option, said Joe Mulford, president of Pine Technical and Community College in Pine City.

“This scholarship helped them realize that college can be affordable and what an important step it is in getting started in a career,” Mulford said. His school award a scholarship to each of the 14 high schools in its area and used community contributions to add $1,000 to each of them.

FILLING HIGH-DEMAND OCCUPATIONS

The $1 million pilot program approved by the Legislature in 2017 gave nearly 400 Workforce Development Scholarships to students during the 2018-19 school year at any of the 30 Minnesota State community or technical colleges. They targeted students in high-demand fields such as advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care services, information technology, early childhood education and transportation.

“Workforce Development Scholarships have proven to be an effective tool for attracting students into these fields and helping them find a path toward a satisfying and well-paying career,” said Devinder Malhotra, chancellor of Minnesota State.

Scholarships are still available for fall 2019. Interested students should contact a Minnesota State college admissions office or financial aid office. Details can be found on the system’s website at minnstate.edu/stories/wds.

Students are eligible to reapply if they have completed two academic terms with a minimum of nine credits each and have maintained a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher.

YEARS AHEAD

During the 2019 legislative session, it was decided that $2 million in scholarships would be available in fiscal 2020 and a total of $6 million in 2021. Also, in 2021, students receiving the scholarship from a state college can continue to apply if they decide to pursue a bachelor’s degree at one of the seven Minnesota State universities.

“We are grateful to the Legislature and the governor for this opportunity, and we look forward to awarding these scholarships to help meet Minnesota’s workforce needs,” Malhotra said.

Three years ago, Dugsi Academy was flush with cash but failing academically.

Now, two years into a costly school improvement effort, the St. Paul charter school faces a long list of unpaid bills that may threaten its very existence.

The K-8 school south of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds had $2.9 million in reserve in July 2015. The fund balance dwindled to just $22,000 last summer and is expected to be hundreds of thousands in the red once the books close on this past school year.

“The school has a financial crisis right now,” said Ahmed Elmi, who heads a different charter school and recently rejoined Dugsi’s school board.

MONEY DRAINED OUT

Dugsi ended the latest school year 10 days early to save on payroll. It’s been penalized for missing payments to the state pension plan for teachers. And it’s engaged in a bitter standoff over billing with its longtime bus provider, Minnehaha Transportation — one of 23 vendors who are owed money, according to a June report to the board.

“We have been really quite shocked with what has taken place. The money has been drained out,” said Jeff Dufresne, who sold his share of the bus company to his business partner last year.

The financial woes have coincided with efforts to improve the school’s academics.

To ensure enough cash on hand to pay bills and weather storms, a school board policy calls for a year-end fund balance of at least 20 percent of annual spending, or roughly $1 million. When that number approached $3 million in 2015, the board set about spending much of its reserves to improve the school.

But in 2016, after 6 percent of students tested as proficient on the state math test and 9 percent passed in reading, the school’s authorizer called for an outside group to turn the school around.

“They were just sitting on buckets of cash but no one was learning,” said Antonio Cardona, who oversees Dugsi and 18 other charter schools for Pillsbury United Communities, one of several authorizers in the state.

Charter school veteran Mary Stafford, with her company True North School Network, took over as Dugsi’s superintendent in 2017, inheriting a $1.4 million fund balance.

After her first year, reserves were down to just $22,000. This summer, Stafford said, they’ll end up between $200,000 and $300,000 in the red.

A balance sheet that Dugsi’s financial management firm presented to board members last month painted an even more pessimistic picture. It detailed $938,000 owed to employees and 23 vendors with just $169,000 in state aid on the way.

Stafford said she’s hired a new accounting firm to clean up the books and that all but seven vendors would be paid soon, once the state delivers the final 10 percent of Dugsi’s yearly funding.

‘TOUGH’ TO WAIT

Those unpaid vendors include Osman Ali, whose catering business has been feeding Dugsi students since the school opened in 2005.

This past school year was the first that he was not paid on time, Ali said. As of late June, he said he was owed around $36,000.

“It’s kind of tough,” he said. “A small business cannot wait for a long, long time.”

Designs for Learning, which provides financial management and special education and other services, said it hasn’t been paid in full in any month since November 2018.

The school’s nurse quit in June because the school hadn’t paid her since December.

The Teacher Retirement Association said last month it would intercept more than $10,000 of Dugsi’s state aid to collect on unpaid contributions and late fees.

The bus company, according to Dufresne, is owed $180,000, but the school disputes that. An attorney for the school sent him a cease-and-desist letter last month asserting the company is owed less than $124,000.

Stafford claims Minnehaha Transportation has been overcharging the school. Dugsi’s analysis of state data showed the school pays more for transportation per student than any of its peers.

Stafford’s company, too, is on the list of unpaid vendors. She was due over $44,000 as of last month.

“Most (charter schools) don’t have money, and we now just joined that group,” said Shukri Hassan, the school board chairwoman.

BOARD WATCHING CLOSELY

Hassan said the board was “spoiled” by the school’s previous operators, whom she said “weren’t doing academically well but they were really good with the finances.”

Now, Hassan said, the board is keeping a closer eye on the school’s accounts. And so is the school’s authorizer.

At the end of May, Pillsbury directed Stafford to produce a detailed, three-year financial plan for rebuilding the school’s reserves.

In a letter, the authorizer warned that the school’s low fund balance “significantly threatens the sustainability of the school and the academic progress being made with its students.”

SCHOOL WAS ‘A MESS’

Stafford acknowledges she spent heavily to meet Pillsbury’s demand for a speedy turnaround. She bought Chromebooks and curriculum, invested in professional development and hired more staff at higher salaries.

“The school was a mess, so it took a lot to clean things up,” she said.

Stafford said the school now has more involved parents and happier staff and has addressed discipline disparities that drew the ire of the state’s human rights commissioner.

Meanwhile, math and reading scores were up slightly in 2018, and Stafford expects more improvement once the 2019 scores are made public.

“We have got excellent outcomes to show. It was worth the investment,” she said.

However, Stafford said she should have responded more quickly when the school wasn’t meeting its financial targets.

“I did lay off staff but I was more conservative than I should have been. I should have made a swifter decision,” she said.

One year ago, there were two Minnesota school districts and four charter schools in “statutory operating debt,” which means they finished the year with a deficit of at least 2.5 percent of annual spending.

Elmi said Dugsi will join that group this year.

Stafford hopes philanthropic organizations will step in to sustain the school.

STAFFORD’S PAY

Stafford’s compensation has accounted for a significant portion of Dugsi’s increased spending since 2016-17.

The school paid True North $39,500 per month in the first year and $36,000 per month last year, which pays for four management positions.

Some of that money has gone to Stafford’s family members, including her son, Jim Stafford, who is the school’s operations director. Her brother, Jim Mulvahill, who lost his law license in 2005 for misappropriating client funds, also works for the company.

While waiting for the bus company to get paid, Dufresne complained to Pillsbury and the Minnesota Department of Education about True North’s family ties. Pillsbury says it has no concerns because Stafford’s family members are not directly employed by the school.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a family business,” Mary Stafford said in an interview.

However, the Minnesota Department of Education did instruct Stafford and her employees to return to the school over $4,700 in reimbursed expenses because they are not employees of the school.

True North also operates another charter school, LoveWorks Academy, for around $237,000 this year, or 12 percent of its revenue.

Stafford sought a service contract in spring 2018 with a third charter, El Colegio, but dropped the proposal because she couldn’t get enough control over the school, according to board minutes.

Cardona said it’s common for charter school operators to manage multiple schools at once. And he said True North’s rates are comparable to what other managers charge.

Still, Stafford said she and the Dugsi school board are working on a smaller management contract for the 2019-20 school year.

Total administrative spending at Dugsi in 2017-18 was $1.1 million — 20 percent of Dugsi’s operating budget. It was $822,000 the year before Stafford took over and $534,000 the year before that.

Cardona said Dugsi’s financial woes are “certainly concerning” but it’s expensive to turn around a failing school.

“Our anticipation is that the school will be able to overcome this hurdle,” he said.

‘VERY HAPPY TEACHERS’

Sam Pfeifer, a Dugsi administrator and former teacher and board member, said Stafford’s turnaround work has made a difference.

“If you went into the school these past two years it really looks like a great school. You’d peek into any given classroom and you’d see kids working hard, engaged, happy, a lot of very happy teachers,” he said. “It’s been a very great place to be.”

Dugsi has almost 300 students, virtually all of whom are recent immigrants from East Africa.

Hassan, the board chair, said she’s pleased with Stafford’s performance, finances aside.

“You hire someone to do job. Probably they did the best they can for the education but there are a lot of financial mishaps that we didn’t watch closely,” she said. “Other than that, we are happy that the school is operating well.”

Student mental health, campus climate and smart spending are on Joan Gabel’s mind in her first month as the University of Minnesota’s 17th president.

The former South Carolina provost, who was chosen for the job in December, has made regular visits to the Twin Cities campus since January but didn’t take over for Eric Kaler until July 1.

She took in her first Board of Regents meeting Thursday and will spend two days with regents during a retreat in Faribault to marry her vision with their priorities.

The U is halfway through a 10-year strategic plan, which will get a “mid-term evaluation” under Gabel, she said.

“I have ideas about future momentum for the university … but I’m very respectful of the fact that a lot of voices have chimed in to get us where we are, and where we are right now is really quite good,” she said.

Gabel said she’ll solicit input from a variety of voices before determining whether she can pick up where Kaler left off or start over with a new strategic plan.

“You don’t want to change for change’s sake,” she said.

Asked after Thursday’s meeting about priorities as she starts her work, Gabel mentioned a need to ensure students’ physical and mental health as well as their academic success.

She wants to see a student body that reflects both the metro and rural Minnesota.

And she said she’ll see to it that the U’s spending aligns with its core mission.

Gabel already has reorganized the president’s staff, reducing the headcount and cost, she said. She’ll have one team for strategy and another for operations.

Key staff include several Kaler holdovers and some old South Carolina colleagues.

She’s searching for a new provost and vice president of human resources.

Kaler, who left the presidency a year ahead of schedule, will spend the year raising money for the U before joining the science and engineering faculty.

Stillwater Area Public Schools will begin talks with its Superintendent Denise Pontrelli about leaving the job. She says she is not interested.

School board members voted 5-2 at a meeting Thursday to negotiate a separation agreement with Pontrelli. She has led the nearly 8,300-student district since 2015.

The vote came after a contentious meeting that featured supporters and critics of the superintendent shouting and interrupting each other. Pontrelli’s controversial BOLD initiative from 2016 in which three elementary schools were closed was brought up more than once in the discussion Thursday.

“It is clear to me that something needs to change,” board member Sarah Stivland said. “I do not know what exactly that change will look like. I am no longer willing to accept the current reality.”

It’s unclear what the time frame is and what the potential buyout of Pontrelli would be. The next meeting is scheduled for July 25 where a public forum will be held on the topic.

SUPERINTENDENT RESPONDS

Hours after the vote, Pontrelli released a statement. It read:

“I have no interest in entering into exploratory conversations with the school board to pursue a possible separation agreement. I believe this conversation would only serve to further divide our community, stretch our already stretched resources, and create more disruption and change in our system — none of which would be in the best interest of our students.

“I am incredibly proud of the work underway within our district on behalf of our students. We continually hear from our teachers in the buildings that they feel supported and appreciate the direction we’re moving. Parents continually share their satisfaction with what is happening in our schools. And our students have more voice and are more engaged than ever.

“I remain interested in collaborating with this school board to work through concerns together. I believe we have the opportunity to model to our students and community what it looks like to work through differences to come to a positive outcome. That is my focus both today and into the future.”

Pontrelli has led the district since 2015 when she came over from Spring Lake Public Schools, where she served as the assistant superintendent and director of educational services.

Her salary for 2019-2020 is $192,932, and her salary for 2020-2021 is $195,826. Her current contract expires June 30, 2021.

DISTRICT TURMOIL

Pontrelli has been the focus of the ire of many parents and community leaders since 2016 when her Building Opportunities to Learn and Discover plan (BOLD) closed three elementary schools.

Parents of students in schools marked for closure objected and unsuccessfully sued the district to keep them open.

A petition was started in 2016 titled “Save Stillwater Area Public Schools; Demand for Resignation of Superintendent Pontrelli” and got 1,000 supporters.

A St. Paul teacher and coach served a 10-day suspension this year after his personal computer was seen displaying a pornographic website in his classroom.

Michael Shaw, who teaches human geography and coaches girls tennis at Highland Park High School, opened his personal laptop to take attendance Feb. 22 before leaving to monitor students in the hallway.

A student sitting near Shaw’s desk heard “inappropriate noises,” then took out a cellphone to record video of Shaw’s computer screen, according to a discipline letter signed by an assistant superintendent.

When Shaw returned to his desk to help another student, he saw “an inappropriate picture of a woman” and quickly closed out of the web browser.

Three class periods later, students informed Shaw there was video circulating of his computer screen. The teacher then told school administrators what had happened.

Shaw told a school district investigator that his laptop was displaying an inappropriate video when its battery died days several days prior. He wasn’t able to charge the computer until he returned to the school.

He said he did not mean to display the video at school.

In the discipline letter, Shaw was instructed to use only work-issued technology when he’s at school and to stay away from pornographic websites.

Shaw first worked for the school district in 1998. He has no prior discipline.

He could not be reached for comment.

St. Paul College’s accrediting agency has placed the school on probation, citing high turnover, underqualified instructors and faculty complaints about “a climate of fear and intimidation.”

The move comes two months after Rassoul Dastmozd announced he was retiring after eight years as the school’s president.

“I think Rassoul played a significant role in where the college is today,” Mindy Travers, former president of the college faculty union, said in a brief interview Friday.

The Higher Learning Commission said the public two-year college is out of compliance with its accreditation criteria in one key area: demonstrating a “commitment to educational achievement and improvement through ongoing assessment of student learning.”

It said the school, until 2019, was not systematically assessing what students were learning in order to make improvements.

But the commission also raised concerns about several other areas.

The commission has been evaluating the college for accreditation purposes since last fall as part of its regular review cycle. That process includes soliciting comments from faculty.

Thursday’s probation notice referenced an April 19 letter signed by most full-time faculty members that said campus climate was an ongoing problem.

Faculty complained that “their opinions are not taken seriously by the administration in the decision-making process” and there has been high turnover in the administration.

The college has sought help from the state management and budget agency to conduct a campus climate survey to better understand those concerns, and focus groups have been formed to address the issues.

“Despite progress already made in this area, additional time is needed for improvement,” the letter said.

The agency also found the college recently had 21 positions that were vacant despite having the president’s approval to be filled. The vacancies have kept faculty from pursuing professional training, the commission said, but filling those spots could deplete the school’s financial reserves, “putting the Institution in a deficit situation.”

Further, a review of the credentials of 44 faculty members found that three had not met minimum qualifications for teaching in a career or technical field.

The college also was unable to provide goals for student recruitment, retention and graduation. And it was cited for poor planning and a lack of transparency in budgeting.

Maggie Zimmerman, a science instructor and faculty union president, said the college has worked aggressively to make improvements since the commission visited campus last fall. She was hopeful it would avoid probation.

She said the commission’s key finding, that the college failed to systematically assess student learning, does not mean faculty were not measuring student learning. Rather, it reflects inconsistency in the way the college collected and learned from that data.

“This is a hard part for us to stomach,” Zimmerman said. “These things have been happening, but our collegewide system for compiling it … hasn’t been consistent.”

She said the administrators in charge of those systems would come and go. When they did, the procedures would change, too.

Deidra Peaslee, former vice president of academic and student affairs at Anoka Ramsey Community College, started this month as interim president of St. Paul College.

Peaslee said in a written statement that since last fall the college has set specific enrollment and retention goals; made plans to fill faculty vacancies without deficit spending; and addressed concerns with underqualified faculty.

“Having successfully led HLC accreditation processes previously, I know that the intensified efforts of Saint Paul College’s faculty and staff will assure that the HLC’s concerns are addressed as rapidly as possible,” she said.

The college could be removed from probation in June 2021, following a comprehensive evaluation set to begin in December 2020.

First, the college must submit an assurance filing by Oct. 1, 2020, providing evidence it has addressed the accreditor’s problematic findings.

For the next two years, St. Paul College will continue to be accredited, but it must notify its nearly 7,000 students, as well as prospective students and other stakeholders, of its probationary status.

“We fully expect that the campus will be very successful in coming through this,” said Ron Anderson, senior vice chancellor for the Minnesota State system of 30 colleges and seven universities.

One other Minnesota school, Leech Lake Tribal College, has been on probation with the Higher Learning Commission since 2017.

A group of about 30 student actors and technicians from the Stillwater Area High School have been invited to perform this summer at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, the world’s largest arts festival.

But the group must raise $27,000 before they leave on July 27.

So they’re doing what they do best — performing their show, “Hamluke,” a “Star Wars” version of “Hamlet” written by Minnesota playwright Brad Erickson.

A number of different fundraising performances are planned this week, including preview performances at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at Stillwater Area High School. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 seniors and $5 students and will be available at the door.

Attendees are encouraged to wear their favorite Star Wars or Shakespeare attire, said director Grif Sadow.

Following Thursday’s performance, audience members are invited to a “Hamluke” after-party, which will feature entertainment, refreshments, photo opportunities with cast and crew and a silent auction; all proceeds will benefit the SAHS Theatre Association.

“Hamluke” will also be presented during Lumberjack Days — at 10:30 a.m. July 21 at Zephyr Theatre, 601 Main St. N., Stillwater.

To donate or for more information, go to: bit.ly/hamluke.

A Ramsey County District judge on Monday granted a temporary restraining order sought by residents opposed to the demolition of the former St. Andrew’s Church.

The restraining order delays the Twin Cities German Immersion School’s plan to demolish the building for an expansion project, but perhaps not for long. As part of her order, Judge Jennifer Frisch required residents opposed to the plan to provide nearly $2 million through a security bond by 2 p.m. on July 22 to cover the potential impact on construction costs.

If they don’t? “The temporary restraining order will automatically and immediately lift and vacate,” Frisch wrote. Otherwise, a full trial is scheduled for December.

Bonnie Youngquist, a Churchill Street resident and member of the Friends of Warrendale / Save Historic St. Andrew’s, said meeting the $2 million figure would be a challenge.

“I’m sad,” she said. “We’ll certainly try. We’re not rich people. We’ll put in an all-out effort to come up with $2 million.”

Meanwhile, Julie Alkatout, the new chair of the school’s board of directors, said in a statement she appreciated “that the court recognized the substantial harm the school will suffer if the project is delayed, and we will await July 22.”

FROM CHURCH TO SCHOOL

Members of Save Historic St. Andrew’s have rallied for months in hopes of preventing the K-8 charter school from tearing down the former St. Andrew’s building at 1031 Como Ave. The building is largely used as a school cafeteria and gym space.

In her 20-page memorandum, Frisch noted that the building, which dates to 1927, was a “community institution” for the working-class people it served. That includes a community of Hungarian immigrants.

The congregation merged with a neighboring parish and moved to a different site in 2011.

The charter school bought the church and a neighboring 1957 school in 2013 and connected the two. The crowded school, which will soon exceed 600 students, plans to replace the church with a new gym, cafeteria and classroom space.

BATTLE ENDS UP IN COURT

On June 3, Save Historic St. Andrew’s sought to block the demolition through a legal action filed under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA), which aims to preserve the state’s natural and cultural resources. The court held a three-day hearing that began July 1, and the judge visited the site.

“The court also referred the parties to mediation, which resulted in an impasse,” the judge wrote.

The school “has now secured most of the approvals pre-requisite to the filing of a demolition permit and expects to begin demolition immediately,” Frisch wrote. “The school has obtained the zoning variances necessary to construct the new building and is on-schedule to obtain supporting financing and conduct construction activities.”

Frisch found, however, that the school failed to prove under MERA that demolition of the school is essential “for the promotion of public health, safety and welfare.”

But the judge added that while a temporary restraining order preserves the status quo for the time being, and does no immediate harm to either side. The judge also noted the overcrowding issues “are not hypothetical. … In the next academic year, the school will enroll 75 more students than the current facility was designed to hold, and this number is expected to grow.”

“Here, the defendant is a public charter school with limited financial services, construction financing obligations and attendant debt service requirements,” Frisch wrote.

A faculty leader who claimed Inver Hills Community College retaliated against him for criticizing the school’s president has settled his lawsuit against the school for $82,500.

Dave Berger, a sociology instructor and faculty union representative, will keep 59 percent of the payout. The rest will go to his attorneys.

Berger also agreed to take an early retirement and never again apply to work for the Minnesota State system of 30 colleges and seven universities. The school agreed to remove four letters from his personnel file.

Berger led the faculty in a no-confidence vote against then-President Tim Wynes in 2016.

Weeks later, Berger was banned from campus over an undisclosed investigation.

He later learned he’d be suspended without pay for five days, purportedly because he’d asked a student to pass out pens bearing the faculty union logo and then refused to speak with an employee who expressed concerns about the situation.

Berger sued Wynes and the college in Dakota County District Court but agreed to drop the case as part of the June settlement. The parties made the deal in order to avoid further litigation costs, according to the agreement, which Berger provided to the Pioneer Press.

Berger also accused Wynes personally of defaming him while Wynes was interviewing for a new job in Illinois; he claimed that when Wynes was asked about Berger’s suspension, Wynes said the instructor was being investigated for sexual harassment.

Wynes and Berger reached a separate, private settlement on that issue in 2017, court records show.

Wynes, who for a time led both Inver Hills and Dakota County Technical College, retired from that post last year and then was hired as president of Black Hawk College in Illinois.

Jay Haugen, the Farmington schools superintendent and 2019 Minnesota superintendent of the year, has announced his retirement.

Haugen has served as a superintendent for three school districts for a total of 23 years — the past eight at Farmington. His work in the southern suburb included involving the community more in the schools and pushing technology forward.

“It’s been such a rich experience, and … I do feel so blessed to have had this role,” Haugen said. “I’m really proud to have served Farmington.”

Noting Haugen’s leadership in his community, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators named him its Superintendent of the Year in December.

“Jay Haugen has had what we would consider a very positive impact on the district over the last eight years,” said Julie Singewald, Farmington School Board vice chair. “This has been recognized not only in our district but across the state of Minnesota.”

While at Farmington, Haugen updated buildings, re-evaluated how the district uses spaces, held town hall events with residents and provided iPads for students.

“We are a completely different place than we were before he came here,” Farmington High School Principal Dan Pickens said. “He has put us on the map, that’s the bottom line.”

HOW HE GOT HERE

Haugen received a bachelor’s degree in science with a teaching certificate at North Dakota State University before earning his master’s degree in education from Tri-College University in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

Haugen said he had no initial intention of being a superintendent. He started out as a high school science teacher.

Those intentions changed after having supervisors repeatedly say no to his ideas.

“After that happened a few times I thought ‘You know, I just need to go be a superintendent because I need to understand this better,’ ” Haugen said.

So that’s what he did.

Haugen started as the superintendent of Sleepy Eye Public Schools, a district of about 700 students in rural Brown County. After 10 years he moved to the larger West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan district.

Farmington schools reached out to Haugen.

“Getting the community involved all together in a united mission is kind of what I do,” Haugen said.

HIS SECRET TO SUCCESS

A successful superintendent doesn’t lead. Instead, he lets the community and staff be the leaders, Haugen said.

“All we are, as a school district, is the support,” Haugen said. “We’re supporting (the community), we’re doing what they want us to do. We’re the servants to our community.”

At Farmington, every teacher is in charge of their own classroom plan, he said. A diverse group of community members, students and staff suggest districtwide initiatives.

Haugen stresses the value of other people and letting their talents be put to use for the benefit of the district.

“There’s this big word in our school district: agency,” Haugen said. “Everyone has agency: the ability to choose what they do, and how they do that.”

WHAT COMES NEXT

Retirement has been on Haugen’s mind for a few years. His wife, Janet Ruth Haugen, passed away in 2017. A self-described introvert, he grew tired of the challenges of being a leader — something he says doesn’t come naturally for him.

“I wanted to be a park ranger and wander around the woods all my life, and so how this happened, being a superintendent, I don’t know,” Haugen said, laughing.

After retirement, Haugen said he has no particular plans. He said he just hopes to keep busy and continue playing a part in the community, taking on the role of Rotary Club president.

Haugen tentatively will leave the district Nov. 15.

“It’s certainly sad and it’s going to be really hard to replace him, but we’re poised to continue to take the path we’ve been taking,” Pickens said.

The process of finding a replacement will be discussed at a school board work session in August.

Going to college wasn’t on Rita Maas Nutt’s radar screen when she was attending Harding High School in St. Paul in the late 1970s.

Her parents hadn’t gone to college; neither had her older siblings.

“Nobody in my family ever had,” she said. “We didn’t have the money for it.”

But theater teacher Dale Fretland “marched (her) down to the counselor’s office one day and said, ‘Find her the money. She’s going to college,’ ” said Nutt, who went on to earn a doctorate in nursing and teaches at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Md.

“I just kept going,” she said. “Without that push, I don’t know if I would have done that. He became a mentor to everybody. He was amazing. I don’t know if he realizes how much he changed people’s lives.”

Nutt, 57, of Magnolia, Del., got a chance to tell Fretland in person Saturday afternoon at a reunion of about 35 of his former students at Richard Walton Park in Oakdale. The event, organized by Marcie Hofford Svitoris and Mari Tubbesing, was the 10th annual gathering of a Facebook group started by Svitoris called “Mr. Dale Fretland aka Fret — The BEST theatre teacher of all time!”

Fretland, who taught at Washington High School from 1966 to 1971 and at Harding from 1971 to 2003, set high expectations for his students and wasn’t afraid to tackle “huge and difficult” plays, said David Carlson, 66, a retired actor, designer and musician.

He also wasn’t afraid to take chances, Carlson said. For example, the 1970 production of “The House of Bernarda Alba” by Federico García Lorca at Washington featured an all-female cast. “He was ahead of his time,” Carlson said.

In 1971, Fretland’s students performed “Medea” by Euripides. “It’s seldom done by colleges, let alone high schools,” Carlson said.

“I wanted to push them,” Fretland explained. “I wanted to challenge them. I wanted to expose them to quality dramatic literature, and I wanted to expose them to characters who were complex.”

Fretland also taught his students to enunciate and project — lessons that served Carlson well, he said.

“He’d yell, ‘Mushmouth! Use diction! Louder!’ ” said Carlson, who lives in Blaine. “That was a big thing because we had to fill the auditorium. To this day, I have a big diaphragm, and I’m a loud guy. My wife always says, ‘Sshhhh. Be quiet.’ We had to fill the auditorium — and those were big school auditoriums — without the help of the little ear microphones that they have now. The acoustics were not great, but we could be heard.”

Fretland, 76, of Lakeland, attended Fergus Falls Community College, intending to become a dentist. He was editor of the student newspaper, and the newspaper adviser called him into his office one day, and said he should pursue his love of writing and the theater.

“He said, ‘Fretland, when are you going to figure out who the hell you are?’ ” Fretland said. “He said I might be a very good dentist, but how much fun am I going to have?”

Fretland graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he discovered his passion for teaching, he said. “I learned that I had to relate to my students as real people who have tangled and needy lives,” he said. “They were just kids that I had an interest in.”

Fretland’s interest in his students at Harding was life-changing, said Conrad Lee, 54, of Cottage Grove.

“He was more than a teacher,” Lee said. “He loved what he did, and knew we all loved him back. His corner room at the end of the hall was a safe haven. If you were bullied … or were having a bad day at home, this was a place you could go and express yourself and be yourself and be accepted amongst your peers. That was your family in school.”

Fretland, who is married and has two children, “would stay after hours and work on weekend,” he said. “Sometimes when we practiced, we’d be there until 10, 11, midnight to get the show done.”

“One of the most valuable lessons he taught me — one that got me through tough times later in life — was that I was good enough as me,” said Mark Severson, 57, of St. Paul. “I never had to act like I was someone else. He definitely reinforced to me that I had to treat people as I wanted to be treated: The golden-rule thing. I’d like to think reunions like this happen for other teachers, but he is a special guy.”

“He never forgot anybody. He was always there,” said McKelvey, 67, of St. Paul, and a 1970 graduate of Washington. “To me, he was like a big brother. He got me to go to college up in Fergus Falls. If you needed him, all you had to do was give him a call. He showed up. He always showed up.”

Anita Hansen Fisher traveled from her home in Spring Hill, Fla., to attend the reunion. The 1975 graduate of Harding High SchooI said Fretland showed his students “how to be the best at what we did.”

“I didn’t have a lot of self-esteem in high school, and he helped me through it,” she said. “He cared about each one of us. A lot of kids get out of high school, and they don’t even think about their teachers or even remember their names, but Mr. Fretland is like family, and you just love him to death and you never forget him, and that’s the way it is. You’re always thinking about him because he left such an indelible mark on your life and in your memory. We were so lucky to have him as a teacher.”

A second St. Paul school board member has announced she’s not running for re-election in November.

Mary Vanderwert said in a message to supporters Friday that her campaign is “officially over.”

“I will find a new avenue to put my time and energy for kids,” she wrote.

Vanderwert received more votes than anyone in the 2015 race, when four first-time candidates were elected to the board with backing from the city’s teachers union and DFL Party.

But she could not secure the St. Paul Federation of Educators’ endorsement this time around and came up three votes short at the DFL’s endorsing convention last month; delegates left the fourth endorsement open.

Vanderwert has spent much of her time on the board advocating for early-childhood education.

School board candidates can file for office July 30-Sept. 13.

The city DFL has endorsed Chauntyll Allen and incumbents Zuki Ellis and Steve Marchese. Others expected to run include Omar Syed, Jessica Kopp, Charlie Castro and Ryan Williams.

Jon Schumacher is not seeking a second term.

St. Paul Public Schools is bracing for a $4 million bill from its health insurer because the teachers union voted to leave for a different health plan before the contract was up.

The decision by the St. Paul Federation of Educators and Teamsters Local 320 to leave HealthPartners for the state-run Public Employees Insurance Program (PEIP) has pit their 4,500 members against school district leaders and the other 1,500 full-time workers, who will see their insurance costs soar.

Superintendent Joe Gothard and school board chairwoman Zuki Ellis wrote a letter to teachers union leaders Thursday, asking them to stay with HealthPartners for one more year.

The letter noted the $4 million early termination fee will eat up about one-quarter of the additional money the district will receive in 2020 thanks to the voter-approved tax increase that teachers pressed for last year.

“Simply stated, the School District does not have the ability to withstand these sudden, unexpected and unbudgeted costs,” the letter read.

State law allows public employee unions to opt out of their employer’s health plan. Federation and Teamsters members, who include teachers, educational and teaching assistants and community services professionals, voted in April and May to do just that. They intend to join PEIP, a self-funded plan administered by the state, starting in January.

The union was motivated by rising premiums under the district’s plan.

“We believe it’s important to do everything we can to hold down health insurance costs. Entering into a pool of nearly 40,000 public employees will help us stabilize those costs,” union President Nick Faber said before the vote.

The HealthPartners contract called for consecutive 7 percent premium hikes; PEIP does not guarantee its rate structure, but premiums historically have climbed by about 2.5 percent each year.

“The rising cost of health insurance can mean not just adjusting the budget at home but sometimes choosing which bills to pay. I voted for PEIP because I need stability,” Sammie Chapman, an educational assistant at Central Senior High, told the school board Tuesday.

CLOSE 2018 VOTE

It’s no secret employees have been unsatisfied with their health insurance.

Still, the district had no indication the teachers would leave the plan halfway through the two-year contract, Human Resources Director Laurin Cathey said.

“If SPFE had informed the School District that it intended to exit the School District’s insurance plan a full year early, the School District would not have entered into the contract,” the Gothard-Ellis letter read.

The move to PEIP should reduce insurance premiums by 5 percent for the federation’s members. But the other 1,500 district employees still on the HealthPartners plan would see premium increases of 22 percent next year.

Custodian Patrick Mulvaney said the teachers’ departure from HealthPartners is legal but “immoral.”

“The bargaining units are spitting in the face” of their colleagues, he said, adding that the teachers should bear the cost burden of their decision.

In addition to paying the $4 million early termination fee due in January, the school district likely would cover a portion of those employees’ big premium increase, Cathey said. That’s because the employer and employees generally share those costs and it’s time to negotiate a new employment agreement.

“The district should not be paying an additional cent to anyone due to this,” school board member Steve Marchese said.

FEE WAIVER?

For their part, federation members are urging district leaders to negotiate with HealthPartners to waive the early termination fee.

Teacher Joan Duncanson likened the fee to “stealing money from St. Paul students.”

Gothard, noting the insurer was set to lose money next year because costs were rising faster than the district’s premium increase, said that’s not likely to work.

“For us to expect them to waive that early termination fee is quite an ask,” he said.

In response to a request for comment Tuesday, HealthPartners spokeswoman Becca Johnson said: “We are hopeful that we’ll continue to serve the employees of the Saint Paul Public School district. If the district moves to terminate early and transition to PEIP it will trigger an early termination fee under the contract.”

Faber wouldn’t say whether the teachers union was reconsidering its decision to leave HealthPartners.

COSTS UNCLEAR

Cathey said that when the district solicited bids last year, PEIP offered lower premiums but fewer perks compared with HealthPartners.

“PEIP seems to be the more affordable option,” based on the initial out-of-pocket premium, Cathey said.

But employees with higher health costs are likely to pay more under PEIP than they have under HealthPartners, he said. PEIP also requires employees to choose a primary care provider at the time of enrollment and to get referrals for specialty care.

Cathey said having employees on two separate plans will make it difficult to educate them during open enrollment and will “handcuff the district in our ability to negotiate prices.”

The 1,500 remaining employees will have to pay HealthPartners’ standard rate, rather than a “preferred” rate offered to large employers.

On Wednesday, following months of debate and legal challenges, the Twin Cities German Immersion School received a demolition permit from the city of St. Paul to remove the former church building that adjoins its classrooms on Como Avenue.

As a result, the old St. Andrew’s Church building could come down at any time.

The planned expansion of the K-8 charter school also received a financial boost on Wednesday when the St. Paul City Council gave preliminary approval to a type of tax-exempt bond financing backed by the city’s favorable interest rates.

The $9 million in conduit lease revenue bonds will allow the school to construct a new classroom, cafeteria and gym building where the former St. Andrew’s Church currently stands. Final approval is expected Aug. 14.

The city council, meeting as the St. Paul Housing and Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday, voted 4-2 to approve the bond financing, which will be paid back entirely by the school. Council President Amy Brendmoen and Council Members Chris Tolbert, Dai Thao and Mitra Nelson voted in favor of the conduit revenue bonds.

Council Members Jane Prince and Kassim Busuri voted against the bond financing. Council Member Rebecca Noecker was absent.

Charter schools are not allowed under state law to own their own buildings. The money will be paid back to bond holders through leases charged by the building owner, the Twin Cities German Immersion School Building Company, a nonprofit corporation incorporated for the sake of ownership. The city is not contributing any funds toward the demolition or construction.

Plans call for a three-story, 23,500-square foot addition to house new classrooms, special education instructional spaces, administrative offices, a gymnasium and cafeteria. The site plan also includes an expanded play area and underground infrastructure for storm water run-off from the building addition. The project carries an estimated price tag of $7.4 million and is expected to wrap up by the summer of 2020.

A spokesman for the school said they do not have a firm date for demolition of the 1927 church building, but envisioned it would begin the first week of August.

A driver crashed into a St. Paul school on Thursday, narrowly missing staff members inside the lobby, a witness said.

No one was injured, but the Hubbs Center for Lifelong Learning is expected to be closed until Monday.

Stephen Hunt, a substitute who teaches English as a Second Language, was signing in for the day “and before I knew it, a car had landed in the lobby,” he said. “It sounded like a large bookcase had fallen and I was quite startled.”

Hunt said he and two other staff members were about 5 feet from where the Ford Taurus came to rest inside the building on University Avenue, just over a block from Lexington Parkway. He and Kevin Burns, St. Paul Public Schools spokesman, expressed their gratitude that people were unharmed.

Police cited the 25-year-old driver for an instructional permit violation and failure to drive with due care, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman. She showed no signs of impairment and the cause appears to be inexperience in driving, according to Linders.

The crash happened about 8:20 a.m.; classes start for the day at 8:30 a.m. Students and staff were sent home, and others were told the building would be closed Thursday, Burns said.

The car smashed through a wall and window, and stopped adjacent to the front reception desk, Burns said. The woman who was driving, who was alone in the car, immediately got out of the vehicle.

The district’s facilities staff is working to confirm the building’s structural integrity and repair the damage; the costs were unknown Thursday. With no classes scheduled for Friday, the school district anticipates classes will resume Monday, Burns said.

The Hubbs Center houses the St. Paul Public Schools’ Adult Basic Education, and is for adults who want to improve their basic skills, earn a GED, prepare for employment or post-secondary education, or learn English.

The Stillwater Area School Board got an earful Thursday evening from deeply divided constituents about Superintendent Denise Pontrelli.

Speakers and spectators packed the public forum before the board’s meeting at city hall to voice their support for or opposition to its efforts to oust the superintendent.

The board had voted 5-2 earlier this month to negotiate a separation agreement with Pontrelli, who has said she isn’t interested in leaving her job and would prefer to enter into mediation with the board over its differences with her.

The vote laid bare a rift within the district over Pontrelli’s Building Opportunities to Learn and Discover initiative, or BOLD, which in 2016 closed three elementary schools with declining enrollment.

A majority of the speakers at Thursday’s meeting expressed support of Pontrelli and her request for mediation, many sporting t-shirts that read “Ponies 4 Pontrelli,” a reference to the Stillwater mascot. Some criticized board members as petty for seeking to remove the superintendent.

“I would assert that the board majority has created many of their own problems,” said Peggy Franklin, a Lake Elmo resident. “You’re willing to publicly scapegoat Ms. Pontrelli to satisfy your personal vengeance.”

Pontrelli was hired to head the 8,300-student district in March 2015, and she released her BOLD plan later that year. The BOLD plan recommended closing Withrow, Marine on St. Croix and Oak Park elementary schools, and moving their students elsewhere in the district.

Pontrelli estimated the closures would save the district an annual $1.2 million, which would be reinvested in updated programming. Despite vocal opposition from parents and local elected officials, the school board approved the BOLD plan in 2016.

Over the next two election cycles, school board candidates running in opposition to Pontrelli and her program have won a majority of seats. Only two members who hired Pontrelli remain on the board.

The new school board voted at its July 11 meeting to seek a separation agreement with Pontrelli. Some supporters of this decision on Thursday pointed to recent the elections as a mandate from voters to change course.

“The old board and their vision for the district was roundly rejected and defeated,” said Bill Gilles, whose daughter is a first-grader in the district. “This new board is saddled with the top executive who designed and administered the vision of the old rejected board.”

Several district employees spoke up for Pontrelli, including fifth-grade teacher Ben Halley, who said the superintendent has broad-based support among educators. He also decried what he characterized as high turnover in the district’s top job.

“In my 12 years in this district, I’ve seen three full-time superintendents and twice had an interim superintendent,” Halley said. “No school district can build and sustain a productive and child-centered culture with such constant turnover of leadership.”

Pontrelli has almost two years left on her contract. She is due $388,758 in salary over those two years, plus up to $20,000 in health and retirement payments.

The cost of paying out this sum in a separation agreement with Pontrelli was a common concern among opponents of her ouster at Thursday’s meeting.

The contract contains no provisions for cancelling Pontrelli contract against her will, unless for cause. Board members have said they don’t intend to do that.

August 1 is the deadline for high school-aged girls to apply to participate in a local speech competition that offers cash prizes to the top three finishers.

The event, sponsored by Metro Republican Women, will be Oct. 26 at the Minnesota State Capitol. The girls must submit an eight-minute speech on the topic “A Republic If You Can Keep It” to speakingproudly.org. The speeches will be reviewed and from them, 50 contestants will be selected to speak in a juried oratory competition.

“We are thrilled to invite Minnesota girls to address such an important topic in the most beautifully restored Minnesota State Capitol,” said Deb Kaczmarek, a leader with the Speaking Proudly team and a high school speech coach. “Competing in this magnificent setting, exercising the freedom to speak up for our country, will be an experience these girls will remember the rest of their lives.”

Thirty-two judges consisting of speech teachers and well-known political and community leaders will take part in judging the speeches throughout the day. A total of $1,750 will be awarded to the top three speeches.

The competition schedule, rules, details about the application process and speech preparation tips can be found on the website.

Metro Republican Women is part of the Minnesota Federation of Republican Women and National Federation of Republican Women.  Known for monthly speakers who address challenging political topics of the day, the club has been recognized for its outreach to military families, concern for literacy issues and for aiding women who are returning to the workforce.