Board cuts 23 to balance budget

More than four years later, the Covid-19 ripple effect continues, with school districts everywhere coming to terms with the end of federal grant funding intended to help students recover from the effects of the pandemic.

On Friday, Cloquet school board members approved roughly $1.6 million in staff cuts — 23 employees in total — most of those the result of federal Covid dollars and a state literacy grant ending this year. About a quarter of the job cuts were due to declining enrollment.

School board chair Nate Sandman said this was the largest round of nonrenewals he remembers since he started on the board in 2016.

“The extra [Covid] funds definitely provided supports for school districts to help students during this time. Unfortunately, the funds weren’t renewed,” Sandman said. “It leaves a lot of school districts, including Cloquet, with difficult decisions in regards to what we can do.”

Due to stipulations in the union contract aimed at preserving tenured employees, none of the cuts were tenured teachers. Instead, they were teachers or staff on probation or early in their careers. In order to keep tenured staff, Cary and the principals had to shift personnel around based on their qualifications.

Education Minnesota Cloquet Union president Collette Lenarz said the district did a nice job of following the contract and thinking of people individually. But they are still tough cuts.

“It saddens me,” Lenarz said. “It’s hard to see good people go.”

District finance director Candace Nelis previously pointed out the grant-funded staff were the district’s most experienced and most expensive staff, so keeping tenured teachers added up to more probationary positions being cut.

Teaching salaries in the school district range from $40,000 up to around $85,000, superintendent Michael Cary said. With benefits, costs average around $100,000. In maneuvering to make the cuts and preserve tenured teachers, some measures required as many as three “trickle down” bumps.

“We hate to see a lot of these young teachers — most cases are young teachers — leave our district. We’ve had testimonials about some of them doing some excellent work,” said board member Ken Scarbrough. “But I also appreciate the detailed discussion that our administration was able to give us at the last meeting explaining how all these fit into the process.”

The final list of cuts set for the end of this school year includes four full-time positions at the high school — two teachers, a social worker and a credit recovery interventionist — plus six teaching spots at the middle school and the equivalent of nine full-time teaching jobs in the two elementary schools. The Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program will lose one English teacher, and Northern Lights Academy will lose one special education teacher. A part-time Title Intervention teacher position shared between Queen of Peace and Churchill was also not renewed.

Class size goals will continue to be met in spite of the cuts, Cary said.

Cary said the district is doing what it can to help its employees whose positions were not renewed. Principals are already writing letters of recommendation, and district staff are “putting in a good word” when they see other positions.

“We’re really doing what we can to try to make sure people land on their feet, because we really respect and appreciate the work they’ve done for us,” Cary said.