New business manager comes from Floodwood

Teresa Hart has been hired as the Esko school district’s new business manager, replacing Janet Halonen, who is retiring June 30.

Hart is the current business manager at the Floodwood school, a district of about 200 students and a budget of about $3.2 million. At her new position, she’ll be managing a budget of about $13 million in a district with nearly 1,300 students.

“I’m excited at this opportunity,” Hart told the board at its April 12 meeting. The district interviewed five candidates and presented only Hart to the school board for approval. The board relied on the advice of the committee and superintendent Aaron Fischer, and voted unanimously with no discussion to hire Hart.

Hart has been the business manager at Floodwood since 2014, and has a degree in business management from Minnesota School of Business.

“Esko is a much bigger district, and is stable and growing,” she told the Pine Knot News. “Plus, it’s nice to have such a great buy-in by the Esko community. The community is really involved in the school, which is terrific,” she said.

Also at the meeting, Fischer presented the board a report compiled by the Arrowhead Regional Computer Consortium that shows of the 30-plus school districts in northeastern Minnesota it covers, Esko receives some of the lowest per-student state funding, about $10,429 per pupil.

“Yet, our district is growing and is financially stable. That’s a result of years of good management by the school board,” he said. The entire report is available for review in his office, he said, inviting anyone interested in seeing it to contact him.

In other news, the all-night grad party committee has moved the location of this year’s event to school property after the Buffalo House location became unavailable. “We’re still planning a great event, though,” said parent organizer Joy Amireault.