Carlton picks short-term superintendent

The Carlton school board has chosen its next superintendent to replace Gwen Carman, who is leaving for a job in southeastern Minnesota.

John Engstrom said the Carlton job appealed to him because it's a one-year stint and not too far from where he is living, southwest of Minneapolis near Lake Minnetonka. The school board officially hired Engstrom during an online meeting Monday.

The district will pay Engstrom $108,243 on a one-year contract that begins July 1.

Engstrom's last job was at Friess Lake School District outside of Milwaukee, where he was the district administrator, the equivalent to superintendent in Minnesota. After 14 years there, the district consolidated with an adjoining one in 2018. "My job was not recognizable that last year," he said of the consolidation process that Carlton also finds itself in. That's also why Engstrom applied for the job: he has experience in what can be an intricate process.

Engstrom said the timing was right to leave his field. His daughter was expecting his first grandchild. The past two years he has been a caretaker for what is now three grandchildren. He and his wife moved to the Twin Cities area to be close to their three adult children.

Engstrom is a 1980 graduate of Cambridge-Isanti High School and spent summers at a family cabin on Sand Lake near Moose Lake. His mother is from Duluth.

"It's an area of the state I know well," he said.

He graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in southern Minnesota and then served in the Peace Corps for a year in Fiji. After teaching for five years in Texas, he taught at schools in the Milwaukee area beginning in 1990. He received masters and specialist degrees in education administration at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and served as principal at two schools in the region before taking the top job at Freiss Lake in 2004.

He applied for the Carlton job after seeing it posted on the Minnesota School Boards Association website. The association was working with Carlton as it fast-tracked the hiring process. Carman announced her resignation on April 14. The MSBA typically has a list of administration candidates seeking to take interim jobs. Engstrom said because he worked in Wisconsin, the MSBA wasn't familiar with him.

Everyone soon became acquainted. School board members said he was clearly the top candidate after interviews in May.

Engstrom said Carlton definitely has its challenges as a small district. The consolidation process with Wrenshall has proven necessary as the district faces declining enrollment as students open-enroll at larger schools.

'It's not a halftime job," he said.

The school board also made changes to the administration by naming South Terrace principal (grades K-5) and district activities director Ben Midge the principal of all grades in the district. Andrew Schmitz, a former teacher in the district, was named the dean of students and activities director.

The district had gone through three high school principals in the past year and was eager to bring some stability to the position. Midge had indicated his interest in becoming principal for the entire district and the board obliged.

Engstrom said he has been to Carlton three times and is eager to work with Midge and others come the start of the school year July 1.

Carman took a job in the Lewiston-Altura district between Rochester and Winona. She has worked closely with the board and Engstrom through the transition.