Carlton wants to stick with 2025 consolidation

The Carlton school board, fresh from sending a four-day school week proposal to the state for approval, returned to the issue of consolidation with Wrenshall. At Monday’s working session, superintendent Donita Stepan was directed to answer a Wrenshall letter which proposed consolidation in summer 2026, instead of an initial consideration of July 1, 2025.

Wrenshall’s correspondence was positive in tone, promising that Wrenshall would “lean into all sharing opportunities,” although declaring their board members had agreed with each other that the consolidation date should be July 1, 2026.

Carlton board members continued to push for a merger date of July 2025.

“I have over and over again expressed my surprise that anybody would want to wait and push it out to 2026,” board chair Julianne Emerson said.

It soon became apparent there was a larger issue. Wrenshall has pushed for a new set of contracts for all administrative positions as of the date of the consolidation. This would primarily affect Carlton superintendent Donita Stepan, whose Carlton contract — which would pay her roughly $140,000 in the 2025-26 school year — isn’t up until July 30, 2026.

“Anybody in those positions would have to reapply, rehire, and the new board would be the one doing that,” Emerson said.

The new school district would be governed during a transition period by a board composed of all 12 members of the two schools’ current boards, and this “new” board would negotiate with and hire the new administrative staff, if Wrenshall has its way.

The Carlton board is opposed to that idea for a number of reasons.

“We don’t want to be starting a new consolidated district with an entirely new administration,” Emerson said. “[We want to start] with people in positions who have been here and know the jobs, and that goes for both districts.”

Board member Erin Szymczak agreed.

“We could be losing people, before we even consolidate,” she said.

Emerson distributed a handout that compared the current administrative roles for both districts. It shows that in some slots, the person in place at each school system does not have a counterpart in the other. It did not list salaries.

Carlton’s position is that most, if not all, of those personnel should be left in place for at least a transition period. For example, Carlton already has a full-time superintendent, while Wrenshall has a part-time superintendent in Jeff Pesta, whose new contract is set to expire before the proposed merger. Carlton has a social worker, but no counselor. Wrenshall has a counselor, but no social worker.

To Szymczak, the document outlined a ready-made solution. “This is a plug-and-play. We’ve got a [person there], they don’t [and] vice versa. This is a no-brainer,” she said.

The perception at Carlton appears to be that Wrenshall’s position on the termination and rehire of personnel is “a line in the sand,” a phrase that was used six times Monday night.

Emerson said she asked pointedly at the last consolidation meeting: “These are the terms Carlton has to agree to for this to continue going forward?” The answer from Wrenshall was “yes.”

“It’s because of Donita,” Emerson said, implying Wrenshall did not want Stepan to carry over as superintendent of a combined school district. If consolidation were effective in 2025, as originally discussed, Stepan would have one year left on her contract and would continue in her present position unless her contract was bought out at what would probably be a considerable cost to the new district. In any case, Carlton wants her retained.

Board member Ryan Leonzal thought the Carlton position was sound, but expressed frustration at the process.

“The quickest we can do something … the better,” he said. “It was really tough to watch those first two [consolidation] meetings. We were going backwards.”

Leonzal called for more discussions to see if there was flexibility in the differing positions. He thought there was also a benefit to staying with the 2025 date, referring to the need for Northern Lights, a special education cooperative with classrooms at Garfield in Cloquet and Carlton High School, to expand and pay rent for vacated Carlton facilities.

In the end, and without formal action, Stepan was asked to draft a response to the Wrenshall letter stating Carlton’s stance on keeping a target date of 2025 and of retaining personnel. In addition, board members thought a meeting with all members of both boards would be a good idea. Emerson floated the idea of inviting Wrenshall’s board for coffee and conversation some time this summer as a way of moving the process along.

Earlier this month, at the Wrenshall school board meeting, Wrenshall chair Mary Carlson and the others also agreed they wanted meetings to include full boards from now on, instead of the committee approach used to begin the consolidation process.