Nilsen to chair changed Carlton school board

Carlton schools held their organizational meeting on Monday, and chose two-year board member Laura Nilsen as the new chair. The previous chair, Julieanne Emerson - who held the post almost continuously for more than 12 years - was not reelected to the board in November.

Nilsen graduated from Carlton in 2004 and also previously worked for the school district for over seven years as the student information specialist. She currently works as a career counselor at the Northeast Minnesota Office of Job Training.

No other candidates for chairperson were nominated.

Sam Ojibway and Ryan Leonzal vied for the vice chair position, with Leonzal winning by a vote of 4 to 2.

The rest of the meeting was taken up with administrative details, including scheduling. Regular board meetings and working sessions will all start at 7 p.m. except for the next work session this Monday, Jan 13. Board member Sue Karp observed that the Vikings play on that night, so that meeting was moved to 6 p.m.

As a general rule, working sessions will take place on the second Monday of the month, with the regular board meetings on the third Monday. When they coincide with Martin Luther King Day or President's Day, the meetings will be held on the following day.

Board pay was left unchanged at $1,000 per year for every board member except the chairman, who gets $1,500. Meeting pay for meetings other than regular and working sessions was set at $40 per meeting.

The only operational issue to come up was an agenda item informing the board that due to a resignation, the South Terrace secretarial position was open. Superintendent Donita Stepan planned to leave the position vacant for cost savings and divide the duties with other staff. "My biggest fear is filling it, and then in March, you guys are going to be voting on budget reductions, and I wouldn't want to hire somebody and then let somebody go," she said.

There were questions from the board. Ryan Leonzal wanted to know if too much work is being assigned to those people taking up the slack.

Stepan replied, "I feel comfortable, based on ... student-to-staff ratio that we should be able to internally cover these positions. Is everybody going to like it? No. Is it going to be an adjustment for people? Yes, but I feel comfortable that we should be able to do it."

New board member Ben Nilsen, Laura Nilsen's husband, asked if that decision was a board decision or a superintendent decision. This led to a fairly lengthy discussion of the roles of each.

"As a board, I'd like to not be told, but I'd like to learn to help make decisions like that," Ben Nilsen said.

"I think, over time, we'll probably get closer to understanding where the board's role is and where the superintendent's role is," Stepan said. She cautioned: "If the board is going to make all of the decisions, then you don't really need a superintendent."

The other new board member, Dan Solarz, struck more of a middle ground in a comment directed to Stepan. "I don't have a need to micromanage ... I want you to use your discretion," he said, while going on to say that a heads-up about a coming change would be most welcome.

The board agreed to revisit the question in March while allowing Stepan to proceed with her plan for the time being.

A combined polling place for district elections was reapproved, but not without comments from Sam Ojibway and others, who pointed out voters from the far western end of the school district have to travel quite a way to get to the proposed location, the county transportation building. Board members acknowledged the expense of a second polling place in Sawyer, but asked that a cost study be made and a Sawyer location be considered before the next election.