Gay student group advisor confronted

A community member shouted questions at the teacher advisor to Wrenshall’s student-based Gender and Sexualities Alliance at Monday’s school board meeting. In doing so, the community member seemed to prove why the advisor wouldn’t let students address the board in person.

“I did not feel comfortable inviting students from the GSA to come to this meeting, because I feel it would put them in an unsafe position,” advisor Ted Conover, an English teacher, told the board.

Bill Dian repeatedly demanded to know if any suicidal expressions from students involved with the club are reported to parents.

The advisor said he has been in contact with parents in at least one instance, but that such communication was private information.

“I’m not talking about one of them,” Dian said, proceeding to talk over the teacher with his inquiry.

Board chair Nicole Krisak shut down the inquiry, telling Dian, “We’re going to stop there.”

Dian had previously been appointed to the board, but was not seated after community response objected to the board’s appointment process. Dian is a regular attendee at Wrenshall school board meetings.

Conover attended in order to follow up on a letter the GSA club sent Wrenshall school board members earlier this year, calling for anti-bullying training for students, with an emphasis on those who target students for being gay or transsexual.

“(It) continues to be a big problem in our school and around the state,” the letter said.

Conover detailed the club’s activities, calling it a goal-oriented club that’s guided by new students’ perspectives with each new school year.

“It’s very much a student-driven club,” he said.

Conover attended training to be an advisor for the club, which began in 2020. He outlined adversity faced by LGBTQ students including higher rates of bullying, anxiety and suicide. He’s personally encountered students experiencing homelessness after being kicked out of their homes, he said. He reported that statistically a third of students who identify as LGBTQ say they’ve been physically threatened or harmed due to their identity.

“Both (another advisor) and I have been on the phone with students having a difficult time, considering hurting themselves, considering suicide,” he said.

From his seat in the audience, Dian seized on the advisor’s report, demanding to know if parents were being informed about discussion within the club.

After Dian’s outburst, board members, including Krisak, committed to bringing further anti-bullying training to the school. But they also noted parents would be informed and that students would be eligible to not take part.

“It’s a subject not everybody in this community is comfortable with,” board member Misty Bergman said.

Board members Mary Carlson and Eric Ankrum thanked the club for its letter, calling it the first student organization to reach out to the newly elected board members.

“It was nice to hear from them,” Carlson said. “I certainly support the training.”

Regarding Conover’s decision to keep club students from addressing the board in public, he contrasted it with when student-athletes shared thoughts with the board on the activities cooperative agreement with Carlton.

“Volleyball players don’t get death threats for being on the volleyball team,” Conover said.

Fired tech director addresses board

Former technology director Jamie Hopp addressed the board several months after she was terminated following an investigation into a threat she made against superintendent Kim Belcastro.

Hopp said she wanted to set the record straight following an board inquiry into technology issues earlier this month. During that Feb. 1 study session of the board, IT contractor T.J. Smith explained that his highest-ever invoices to the district — $18,180 worth this school year — were the result of cleaning up technology issues left behind by Hopp, including what he described as glaring security holes.

“Nothing was done for four years,” Smith said Feb. 1. “I’ll be point-blank honest and blunt: your previous tech director, I don’t know what that person did.”

On Monday, Hopp countered those claims, saying she secured grants for 300 Chromebooks used by students, 10 laptops and 210 wireless internet hotspots.

“If I didn’t do anything for four years, how could it be that everyone could print, everyone could pull up documents, everyone had reliable internet, and everyone had what they needed?” she said. “There was not even one security breach or virus the entire four years I worked for the district.”

A failure to apply for federal reimbursement of tech spending also materialized while she was on paid leave during the investigation, Hopp said.

The district’s business manager Angela Lind told the board Feb. 1 it was the tech director’s job to apply for the annual federal reimbursement to help with internet connectivity, amounting to thousands of dollars.

“I was on leave in May and did not return,” said Hopp, who was terminated in September. “The only reason we missed out (on funding) was your tech department dropped the ball.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, the board also accepted the resignation of James Hopp, Jamie’s husband and former co-lead of the district’s janitorial department.

“After what happened with my wife, I do not want to be looking for a job while unemployed,” he said in a resignation letter, while alluding to the fact he’d retained other employment.

Jamie Hopp challenged the board to further confront Smith’s contracted services. The IT director with Cloquet public schools, Smith has done side work with Wrenshall since leaving the small school district. Only this year have his service invoices grown beyond a few thousand dollars annually.

The board, currently in the process of making $300,000 in budget cuts, has told Smith that it no longer wanted to be surprised by invoices, and that it wanted to pre-approve future work. The board also talked about moving in the direction of hiring another part-time IT director, but not before restarting a technology committee made up of board members and teachers to gain a stronger grasp of technology issues within the school.

Residents don’t want to share superintendent

A survey of residents on superintendent options yielded 164 responses. A majority, 24 percent, wanted to keep the current structure of using a part-time superintendent and full-time principal.

Twenty-two percent said they didn’t know what they wanted. Only 6 percent said they’d prefer the district share a superintendent, an idea that was not embraced by the Carlton school board.

“We did have really good participation in the superintendent survey,” Bergman said. “The whole thing was really shocking for me.”

Belcastro announced her retirement and resignation in January, agreeing with the board to stay on until the end of the school year on a half-time basis.

Bergman, head of the search committee, said she’d use the survey data to help create job postings and descriptions for approval by the board during its March 1 special meeting.

Regarding the community response, Carlson said, “We hear you. We’ve got to focus here right now,” and not on further sharing or consolidation.