Wrenshall asks Carlton to share superintendent

The newly constituted Wrenshall school board went straight to the heavy lifting this week, bracing for the end of its superintendent’s career, while posing the idea of sharing a top administrator with neighboring Carlton.

In a letter sent to the Carlton school board this week, the Wrenshall board asked if there was interest in sharing administration, a school nurse, and grounds and maintenance staff. Last year, the districts agreed to consolidate all sports and afterschool programs beginning this spring.

The letter comes as the Wrenshall board accepted the resignation and retirement of superintendent Kim Belcastro, effective this month, while also agreeing to keep Belcastro on a part-time basis through June. Belcastro will now work two days a week at the school and a half-day from home, down from the three full days weekly she had been working at the school. The drop in hours was unanimously approved to help a district that’s struggling financially and with low enrollment.

“As many of you have heard, our superintendent is retiring,” the Wrenshall letter to Carlton said. “As our district is facing a budget deficit, we would like to pursue further collaboration with Carlton instead of reducing educational or extra-curricular opportunities for students.”

Carlton superintendent John Engstrom said he wasn’t yet prepared to address the matter.

“The safest thing is to wait,” Engstrom said, adding that the Carlton board would take up the letter during its board meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Belcastro’s own letter to the Wrenshall board announced her retirement for Jan. 5, with an ability to transition through the end of the year. The timing irked newly elected board chair Nicole Krisak.

“I was not happy about the retirement, I wish you would have waited until June,” Kriskak said during Tuesday’s board meeting. “I’m not going to hide that. I was mad; I was upset.”

Afterward, Krisak reasoned that Belcastro’s timing came during a difficult period, one that saw the board approve an additional $70,000 in budget cuts at the meeting on its way to $300,000 in cuts by the end of the school year. The latest cuts included a kitchen aid, nurse, reduced superintendent hours, and the retirement of a high school math teacher.

To date, the district has cut roughly $100,000 from its budget, with most of the remaining cuts expected to involve teaching positions at the end of the contractual year in June.

“Retirement normally should be done in June,” Krisak told the newspaper. “But it’s done and over with, and we’re moving forward.”

Belcastro had previously threatened a mid-year retirement last year, during a tumultuous period in which she’d been an ongoing target of the previous board. Those former members and other Belcastro detractors were in the audience during the meeting, sometimes talking in a disruptive manner during proceedings.

“I was tired of the harassment from some of the community members,” Belcastro said, when asked why she chose to call an end to her 11-year career atop the district.

Board member Misty Bergman, who will lead a superintendent search committee, also expressed dismay with Belcastro’s timing, and Alice Kloepfer, who returned from a leave of absence, wondered aloud if the board could accelerate the hiring of a new superintendent and and free the district of Belcastro’s services. Everybody agreed Belcastro was contractually eligible to retire when she did.

“I could have been done now if I wanted,” Belcastro said, telling the newspaper her aim was to help the district transition into new leadership.

Newly elected Mary Carlson summed up the proceedings.

“I’ve had lots of community discussion regarding this,” she said. “There is a section of this community that loves and supports Kim, and there is a section of this community that does not.”

In the end, the board agreed, with a lone dissenting vote from Kloepfer, to keep Belcastro through the end of the school year.

“We’re best off keeping what we have until June,” board member Ben Johnson said.