The 2025-2026 school year has only just come to a close, but June’s school board meeting demonstrated that the District is already looking ahead to next year. After some back and forth for a few months, the Board accepted the Costin Group as Consultants for the Lake Superior School District. Jeff Anderson, a native of Ely and resident of Duluth, represented the Costin Group and spoke on legislation the organization has handled in the area recently and what their plans are for the future. One important piece, the Minerals Article dealing with Mesabi Metallics, has been highly anticipated for the benefits it would provide to local schools in particular. Anderson emphasized the importance of communication, especially between Democrats and Republicans, to be able to get things done in legislation. The Minerals Article, for example, was a combined effort including both State Senator Grant Hauschild and State Representative Roger Skraba. Other important legislation for the area also included Governor Walz recently signing a regulatory framework for helium production, which will ensure Cook, Lake, and St. Louis counties have some benefits and protections regarding, for example, Pulsar’s upcoming Topaz Project.
But as always, there’s more to get done. Looking ahead, Minnesota’s ballot this November will include a vote on updating the state’s Permanent School Fund to allow increased yet still sustainable distribution of money to school districts. Of critical importance, the lack of a vote in favor of the proposition counts as a “No”, meaning people will need to come out in force and vote “Yes” to have the School Fund update passed. A non-partisan task force formed in 2024 evaluated the current fund’s status to make the proposed changes, and there would be zero cost to taxpayers for the updated version. Superintendent Gina Kleive spoke enthusiastically of the importance of having the Costin Group’s help representing the School District, with the Board voting unanimously in favor.
In more brief matters, the Board approved Two Harbors High School and William Kelley High School’s continued membership with MSHSL (Minnesota State High School League) and a contract renewal with ARCC (Arrowhead Regional Computing Consortium), both covering the next school year. The Board also received an annual report from Q Comp and accepted grants/donations for the past month with little discussion.
Four members of the School Board are up for grabs this November, as the seats of Steve VanHouse, Tracy Tiboni, Dean Korri, and Jeff Radle are due for reelection. Candidates interested in taking on one of the positions will have between July 14th and July 28th to file affidavits of candidacy.
The Board did have concerns about the situation involving a grievance, which in this case involved two teachers each taking on roughly half of a classroom split during a third teacher’s leave of absence. This unfortunate set of circumstances, which involved some misunderstandings and bad timing, led to the teachers being owed more pay than given for the extra students handled. The Board discussed what led to the issue and how it could have been better handled, with a general consensus going forward that there should be a formal process for similar future cases of long teacher absences and that splitting a class during a teacher’s absence should only be done as a last resort due to the added expense.
Community Education Director Brett Archer led this month’s reports by speaking on the goal of getting a larger network of professionals to teach Community Education classes next school year. Little Mariners Child Care Center has also been slowly digging out of its financial deficit, with Archer saying the business has “a lot of challenges, but we’re making progress.” Board Chair Tiboni praised the Center’s new management for keeping its finances “on rail.”
Minnehaha Principal Shane Johnson was absent from this meeting but sent her report via Two Harbors High School Principal Mike Emerson. The school’s hopefully new tradition of ‘Moving Up Day,’ where students are introduced to their teacher and classroom for the next year, was, according to Johnson, a huge success. “I walked through the classes and everyone was engaged and excited to know their teacher.” She also noted average attendance at Minnehaha was 93% for the year, and that in the upcoming year, they are working on a master schedule so staff can better intervene within a student’s schedule with minimal disruption. They are also implementing a morning meeting school-wide and a program called WIN (What I Need) to help with reading.
William Kelley Schools Principal Dan Johnson highlighted the softball, track, and baseball teams as having had great seasons. Graduation went well, though there were issues with the sound system, which will be figured out soon to “make sure that doesn’t happen in the future.” Summer plans for the school will include heavy-duty cleaning, especially for the stairwells. Teachers are also busy, as many at the school have or are about to conclude LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training, and will be working on curriculum for Fishtank over the summer in preparation for starting the program in earnest next school year.
Two Harbors High School Principal Mike Emerson covered the school’s Athletic Banquet and the Honors Night for Scholarships, where over $65,000 in scholarships was awarded to students. Moving forward, he plans to add a monthly behavior report for the Board, giving an overview of issues with the student body. To begin, this past month included 45-50 incidents, with prohibited weaponry and lots of digital breaches being most notable. He did point out that, despite the fear ‘prohibited weaponry’ might cause, it included items made by students in woodworking classes with probably no serious intention of being used for violence. Staffing for the upcoming year is going well so far, with a healthy number of applicants across the roles in need.
Lastly, Superintendent Gina Kleive spoke on attending a recent conference with the District’s principals, where Kleive described feeling affirmed by their adoption of the MnMTSS (Minnesota Multitiered System of Supports) system due to its ongoing success in other regions of Minnesota. Presentations on school law also brought up the need to update several policies to adjust to current legislation, plus make a policy to deal with GenAI.
