Incoming superintendent Nordy Nelson presented to the International Falls School Board a variety of options to cover the elementary principal position at a special work session Thursday.
The move was prompted by a stalemate caused by split votes of 3-3 at two previous school board meetings involving which of the three final candidates to hire for the upcoming school year. No action was taken at Thursday’s meeting; it was a work session for discussion only.
Previous Falls Elementary and West End Elementary Schools Principal Jerry Hilfer retired Saturday. The board had intended to fill the position with a contract starting Sunday.
“(The stalemate) can be a real positive for us,” Nelson said to the board. “And it gives us some time to look at the position; and do we want to continue doing what we’ve always done? That’s just a thought.”
Nelson emphasized that his ideas were not based on knowledge of any of the candidates; he said he did not know details of any discussions that took place about the candidates.
“I don’t know these individual finalists,” he said. “So it gets to be a little trick sometimes to put some options together on what we can do (not knowing the staffing of the elementary schools).”
Nelson presented six options to the board at the meeting, each with a discussion on “pros” and “cons.” All of the options included pros of possible cost savings to the district. With each option he presented, Nelson added that a consideration could be some superintendent coverage of the elementary principal job description for the upcoming school year.
He added that all options are derived from recommendations from the Minnesota Department of Education and the state legislature on how to proceed in such a situation in which the board faces a stalemate.
One of the options was hiring a half-time community education director who would also be a half-time elementary principal. The district has a vacancy for the community education director position. Nelson said a pro would be that the candidate would have broad involvement with district and school operations.
“Now some of the cons against it are some of the schedule arrangements; they can be difficult,” Nelson said. Other cons include time to post the opening and overcoming licensure issues; the Minnesota Department of Education requires licensure for both positions.
“Or you can go to another district, and have that person in that district sign for this district,” he said, adding that he’s worked at districts that have done that. He continued that the superintendent in this scenario would likely have to cover some of the elementary principal duties.
A site-based arrangement was presented as an idea, in which a half-time teacher would be also a half-time elementary principal. He said although many school districts have used this arrangement, “they’ve kind of gone away from them” because of conflict-of-interest issues in dealing with faculty, staff and parents.
“So there’s reluctancy there to get into a decision-making when it involved some of those things,” Nelson said. “If the principal could handle it with all that, that can work.”
He reminded the board of the challenge of having two elementary buildings. Nelson said the “scheduling with the different emergencies that come into play gets to be a part of the whole scene.”
“When you have two sites, it’s very easy to start seeing that wedge come between the two buildings,” Nelson said. “And if they’re not working together, well, it keeps growing. And it gets worse, unless there’s a real team effort to draw everyone together.”
The other option would be to hire or create two half-time principals. This could be from within the district, adding to other half-time positions, or completely new candidates, he said.
“Those individuals need to be a strong team and heading in one direction,” Nelson said. “If you have two individuals going in opposite directions or two different directions, it’s not going to work.”
Another option would be to re-post the elementary principal job opening, and take a look at all the candidates. Previously, 13 candidates applied for the position. This was then narrowed down to three finalists.
The re-posting could possibly include additional job duties, although he said that would be difficult on that individual, given there are two elementary buildings.
“They’re busy enough,” he said. “But, school districts have done it.”
Another option includes combining the superintendent and elementary principal position, which Nelson has done in the past, he said. However, in such previous arrangements, he was already familiar with the district before he took on the added role of principal. A pro is cost savings of the present principal’s wage and benefit package, roughly about $110,000, he said.
The difficulty would be in balancing the three directions of superintendent and principal of two buildings, he said.
“And you have issues coming up almost the same time in three different places, it gets to be a real challenge,” Nelson said. “And it’s a real workload. Even if all the elementary grades are under one roof.”
He added that coverage of both positions “is very taxing; to carry through with the whole year gets to be a real challenge.”
The last option presented was to have the outgoing elementary principal, Hilfer, hired on part-time for next school year, or have him hired until a new candidate can be hired.
“There would be some consistency there, the individual is familiar with the operations,” Nelson said. “Now, I have no clue if there’s any interest in that or if the board would even want to consider that.”
Nelson added that “these are options from myself, really on the outside looking in.”
Falls Elementary School special education teacher Shawn Johnson expressed concern to Nelson and the board at the meeting about how a shared superintendent and elementary principal position would provide enough flexibility for immediate coverage in a situation in which a behavior issue comes up in the classroom.
“Because we can never guarantee, we can’t say for sure, when a behavior will occur,” Johnson said.
Nelson said that in his past roles at other districts in a combined position of superintendent and high school principal, “I was always able to get to that person and help that teacher.”
Johnson asked about the size of previous districts he has worked at, and he said he has worked in a district of 700 students kindergarten through 12th grade, and another with 1,650 students. He was able to resolve issues in a timely manner, he said, even with many discipline issues throughout the district. He added that the combined position was “very taxing” and that the following year the board hired a candidate to take over the principal duties.
Falls Elementary School secretary Debbie Mitchell, who has also worked at West End Elementary School, said she feels the district needs a full-time elementary principal who is on-site at the two schools.
“Like Shawn said, if you have your superintendent role, and we have an issue at Falls Elementary, by the time you get over there, even if you aren’t in the middle of something, there’s a lot of time that’s lapsed, even if it’s only ten minutes,” Mitchell said. “And there are a lot of issues. So we need somebody on-site for the whole day.”
Nelson agreed with Mitchell’s point of view and added that he understands her concern having been in those types of situations.
“I’m not arguing that one bit,” he said.
School board member Darrell Wagner asked Nelson how many days he would be working on-site in the district.
Nelson said his pattern in the past included attending school board conventions twice a year and having a late-afternoon meeting every six weeks with area superintendents.
“Otherwise, I’m basically in the district every day,” he said.
Nelson said he would like to meet with elementary faculty and staff and go over the options, giving them a chance to provide input before the regular school board meeting July 16.
School board chair Stuart Nordquist added that the board will also seek advice from staff before making a decision.
