The big focus of this month’s board meeting was the Board’s unanimous approval of Fishtank, a new reading curriculum for grades K-5. This was accompanied by a presentation from Lake Superior School District Literacy Lead Pam Carlson and William Kelley School Principal and Curriculum Director Dan Johnson. Fishtank is being approved as part of the district’s continued push for improvements under the requirements of the Minnesota READ Act, which includes teacher training and resources provided by the state for the adoption of new curricula. Fishtank, a knowledge-based curriculum, will accompany the Functional Phonics + Morphology foundational skills curriculum approved and put into practice last year for K-5. This follows a yearlong trial period of Fishtank being used by select staff and students at William Kelley Elementary and Minnehaha.
Carlson began the presentation by covering why Fishtank was chosen, highlighting the curriculum’s guiding principle of “building knowledge to nurture critical thinking”. One diagram used to explain the way K-5’s reading curriculum will work featured the Scarborough’s Reading Rope commonly used for reading training, with Carlson explaining that the Rope comprises “all of the pieces [kids] need to actually be able to comprehend text.” The braided rope in the diagram is made up of two major strands, which in turn are comprised of several threads each. In this example, the bottom half of the rope is made from the currently used Functional Phonics + Morphology program. The strands making up that curriculum include word recognition, phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition – skills designed to teach kids how to understand what they are reading on a technical level. To complement this, the top half of the rope would be made from Fishtank ELA’s curriculum, which is shown as threads teaching language comprehension, background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge – skills teaching a broader context for understanding what is being read. By combining the two separate programs rather than just a single one, the ‘rope’ as a whole ends up stronger with less chance of certain learning elements being left out. For those participating in the trial run, “we’ve had very positive feedback from teachers and students,” Carlson said, “especially the kids that are in upper elementary with the morphology. They are so enthusiastic about the ‘why’, and understanding why words mean what they do.”
Fishtank’s lessons come in several forms: reading, writing, discussion, writing projects, and assessments. “It’s really making the students be able to be independent thinkers, independent writers,” Carlson explained. K-1 has books taught through read-aloud, which helps teach vocabulary and ensures students are all – literally – on the same page when reading. This lays the groundwork for later years when students transition to reading on their own. Although growing pains in adopting the new, more intensive program are anticipated for teachers, the outcome from the schools’ trial runs shows that it is well worth it in the long run. Carlson predicted that, given a few years to acclimate to the new process, “we should see some pretty fantastic things happening.” Teachers doing pilot runs of Fishtank have already had success, sharing ways to ease into the new program. “The pilot was supposed to go half of a year,” Carlson noted. “And when it was over, the Fishtank people, most of them said, ‘Is there any way we can continue? Because we can’t imagine going back to what we had.’”
One benefit to Fishtank is that the majority of reading materials for the program are standard books rather than specialized readers, meaning the texts students are reading are the same that would be found in libraries or bookstores. Switching to Fishtank would mean an upfront cost for the district to purchase these books, as with any new program, but because the books are not unique to the program, they can be repurposed at the program’s end, say to be in a school’s library, rather than tossed in a discard pile. Any additional student handouts or teacher materials can be printed or digitally distributed, and the curriculum is structured so that updates to the program can be provided far faster than the older method of waiting for a new edition of a physical textbook.
St. Louis County adopted Fishtank district-wide in the past year, which provides Lake County with a good opportunity to take lessons from their neighboring County’s experience on the use of the program moving forward. Talks with second-grade teachers in St. Louis County already using Fishtank have gone well, with Carlson optimistic about collaboration in future years. Looking forward, the projected implementation timeline has teachers at William Kelley Elementary and Minnehaha Elementary being taught Fishtank starting next month, with teachers involved in the pilot program this past year helping to train others. Hopes are that Fishtank will be ready for use during the 2026-2027 school year. The presentation ended with feedback from several of the pilot teachers, such as Minnehaha teacher Ms. Stainbrook, stating, “Lessons naturally connect reading, writing, talking, and listening, so kids are actively engaged and sharing their ideas.” Currently, the district is using the Superkids curriculum for K-2 and the Wonders curriculum for grades 3-5, with the added difficulty of the online sources for the District’s version of Wonders now being inaccessible. Fishtank will be replacing both.
Other issues covered during the meeting included a follow-up appearance of Amy Jordahl during the open forum to push for further policy meeting updates and ask parents to be involved in discussions of new policy. “I don’t want conversations to turn into us versus them,” she clarified. “It’s about all of us working together.”
The Staff Spotlight was on the recent tenure of Kim Lenski, an early childhood educator who has been with Lake Superior School District since 1996. Kleive noted her appreciation for Lenski’s longtime help and familiarity with local families, from birth through graduation.
New business items aside from the reading curriculum approval included the annual layoff of all Educational Assistants in preparation for fresh hiring for the new school year, and the retirements of Lauren Burton with 32 years of service, Terry Blood with 11 years of service, and Karen Loden with 29 years of service.
The Board also heard an initial budget discussion of fiscal years 2026 and 2027, with a presentation by Lake Superior School District Business Manager Tanner Spawn. After big changes during the years encompassing the peak of building projects and COVID, the budget is settling into a more predictable state from 2025 to 2026. “Which is good,” Spawn noted, “it makes budgeting a lot easier.” One of the notable changes was an increase in health insurance premiums, going from $2.10 million to $2.42 million, a bit more than the previous year’s change. Spawn did warn of possible budget issues going into fiscal year 2028, saying “we’re going to need to take a look to see what we can do to get more students or streamline operations a little bit,” taking into account continued health insurance increases.
Next came reports from the schools, starting with Minnehaha Principal Shane Johnson. Students are attempting to patiently wait for spring. Testing for the elementary students kicked off with a fun assembly, and the school recently tried out a new event called Book Blast, where students were able to get free books. The school also recently had a celebration day for paraprofessionals to, as Johnson said, “make them feel loved and cherished.”
Two Harbors High School’s report was given by Assistant Principal Rachel Jackson, as Principal Mike Emerson was away attending the Minnesota School Safety Conference. School registration has wrapped up for next year, a bit later than planned but still on schedule. As part of the Minnesota Association of Career and Technical Administrators (MACTA), Principal Emerson attended an event in Washington, D.C., meeting with several state representatives to advocate and get funding for career and technical education programs. Assistant Principal Jackson has been pushing for students to use school-provided planners to help them stay organized, with ongoing checks throughout the year to award students who fill out their planners regularly. There has been an ongoing challenge of dealing with tardies, and for this next year, Jackson has teamed with Lake County Human Services and the District Attorney’s office to start a program for kids to make up for school time while working with tutors, completing coursework with extra support, and other tasks beyond what would be available in a conventional ‘detention’ setting.
William Kelley School Principal Dan Johnson followed with talk about winding down construction, including improvements to the woodshop, new AC units for the gym and pool areas, and some of the auditorium fixes requested during the previous meeting. Testing began with a kick-off breakfast for grades 3-5 and snacks for the high schoolers. William Kelley High School, as well as Two Harbors High School, are working with Lake County Public Health to combat drug addiction, with details to come.
Superintendent Gina Kleive closed out the reports by reviewing her attendance at the Minnesota School Safety Conference in Duluth earlier that day. The conference had opened with a keynote speech from former Sandy Hook student Reichen Posey, who had been a first grader during the mass shooting in 2012, which Kleive found “very sad but inspiring”. She met with many others across the state to talk about different safety tools, such as the CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines)model. In regard to Lake Superior School District’s safety policies moving forward, Kleive remained open to scheduling another committee of the whole meeting but warned of possible related legislative changes in the coming month, which might alter possible strategies that could be taken by the District. District #1 RepresentativeSteve VanHouse followed up on Kleive’s comments, pushing for a follow-up policy meeting as well as voicing concerns over the School District using Costin Group as their lobbyist, asking for further information before entering into a contract. District #2 Representative Tracy Tiboni agreed that more research and a general consensus were needed before moving forward with theCostin Group, hence the removal of the contract approval from the agenda at the start of the meeting. Kleive finished the meeting, noting the importance of Lake Superior School District to have a competent and trustworthy lobbyist in the coming year, especially given the future of helium as a potential funding source in the area.
