Four years ago, voters upset about plans to close three elementary schools in the Stillwater Area School District turned out in droves for the school board race.
Now, with an unprecedented five seats up for election this fall, voters again could usher in a sea change on the seven-member board.
The Nov. 3 election “represents an unprecedented opportunity to shape the school district for years to come,” said former school board member Mark Burns, who stepped down from his position in July.
RELATED: Meet the candidates running for Stillwater Area Schools board
HOW WE GOT HERE
The board has been dealing with a series of high-level disruptions and controversies, including terminations, lawsuits and early departures from the board.
Among them: the resignations of two board members mid-term, the departure in April of an assistant superintendent and a three-year dispute over the district’s $7 million school-bus garage in Lake Elmo.
Last month, the board voted to terminate the district’s finance director, Kristen Hoheisel. Hoheisel in May sued the school district and the chairwoman of the school board for allegedly violating the state’s open-meeting laws, the whistleblower statute and the Data Practices Act.
In June, the Stillwater Area School Board voted 5-2 to cut ties with Superintendent Denise Pontrelli; her last day was July 1. She received a nearly $300,000 settlement.
Pontrelli had been the focus of the ire of many parents and community leaders since the school board voted 5-2 in 2016 to close three elementary schools — Withrow and Marine in the northern, more rural part of the district, along with Oak Park Elementary in Stillwater. The idea was to consolidate students into fewer buildings and use limited resources more efficiently and equitably.
Parents of students in schools marked for closure objected and unsuccessfully sued the district to keep them open; new board members, including board Chairwoman Sarah Stivland, who ran in opposition to the school closures, were elected.
Now, Stivland is up for re-election. She is running with a slate of candidates that includes Dawn Beavers and fellow board members Mike Ptacek, Bill Gilles and Tim Brewington. Stivland, Ptacek and Beavers are running for four-year terms; Gilles and Brewington are running for two-year terms.
Brewington and Gilles, the two newest board members, were sworn in last month to fill seats left open due to board-member resignations mid-term; Shelley Pearson and Burns both resigned July 23. Pearson said she made her decision because she was concerned about her family’s safety.
Katie Hockert, Matt Onken and Annie Porbeni, who are running for four-year terms, and Bev Petrie and Alison Sherman, who are running for two-year terms, also are running as a slate of candidates.
Philip St. Ores is running for the four-year term. Two others are running for the two-year terms: Joseph Ehler and Roger Ziemann. Nance Purcell’s name is on the ballot for the four-year term, but she told the Pioneer Press she has suspended her campaign.
School board member Jennifer Pelletier decided not to run for re-election. She said she hoped her decision not to seek re-election enables a person of color to take her spot on the board. “If we are going to make a change,” she said at the time, “we have to be the change.” Two of the candidates, Brewington and Porbeni, are people of color.
KEY TASK: HIRING SUPERINTENDENT
Whoever is elected will immediately begin the work of selecting a new superintendent to replace Pontrelli. Afton-Lakeland Elementary Principal Malinda Lansfeldt was tapped in July to be interim superintendent.
The new hire is key, candidates said during a recent forum sponsored by the Stillwater Gazette.
“I think we need a long-term superintendent who isn’t in their last three years of employment,” Beavers said at the forum. “We need a great communicator.”
With the district going through “seven superintendents in the last 20 years,” Hockert said, “we need someone who is going to stay.” She said the new superintendent must be experienced in identifying the needs of underserved students and committed to providing the necessary resources to address those needs in an equitable way.
ON ISSUES OF RACE
Alumni and students of color at Stillwater Area High School called on board members in June to keep Pontrelli in her role as superintendent and said removing her would move the district in the “wrong direction.”
In a letter to the board, alumni and current students wrote that students of color have long dealt with “blatant racism and microaggressions” at the high school, including repeated use of the N-word by white students and faculty, swastika illustrations on school property, and the forceful removal of hijabs from Muslim students.
“We write to you … to formally address our frustrations with the district’s history of unaddressed racism, microaggressions and inaction,” they wrote in the letter, which was sent just weeks after George Floyd died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer’s knee. Floyd’s death was captured on video, touching off nationwide protests.
At the forum, Stivland said a “silver lining” of the Floyd tragedy was that in the aftermath, students and former students “have had the courage to step forward and raise awareness about some serious concerns of disrespectful behavior and unkind behavior.”
The district recently hired a racial inclusiveness and equity coordinator, she said. “There is still much more work to do, but the board and the district have both made a commitment to ensure that all students feel respected and valued in our schools,” she said.
White students now account for 78 percent of total enrollment in the district, down from 91 percent a decade ago.
SEEK MORE MONEY FROM TAXPAYERS?
Also on the board’s agenda: whether to ask voters next year to renew an expiring operating levy. Board members have until November 2021 to renew the existing operating levy without losing approximately $12 million in funding. They also may ask voters to approve a bond referendum to finance building improvements. No dollar figures have been announced, a school district spokeswoman said.
But will the board, after all the rancor of the past year, be able to come together and work toward a greater good?
Petrie said at the forum that she hopes the new board will make decisions “for the entire community.”
“I’ve been around this district for a long time, and this seems to me to be one of the most consequential board elections that we have ever had,” Petrie said. “It seems as though that in the past couple of years, we have had a board that was focused on the past and marching us back to the way things were before. This district has changed dramatically. We need a board that looks at that and makes data-driven decisions and not decisions based on sentiment.”
WATCH A CANDIDATES FORUM
The candidates forum is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5JmdXOyibU. On election night, Valley Access Channels in Stillwater will be covering election results live online and on Valley Access Channels.