After about seven months on the job, International Falls Superintendent Nordy Nelson said he will leave the position June 30 to pursue his St. Cloud, Minn.-based consulting business full time.
“I do a lot of consulting with lot of school boards across the state,” Nelson told The Journal Wednesday. “I concentrate on negotiations, levy referendums and putting together budgets. Some districts don’t have a superintendent or business manager, and this upcoming year is a high-volume year because all the schools will be negotiating contracts, and there are quite a bit of (superintendent) openings across the state, so they’ll need help.”
Independent School District No. 361 School Board Chairman Darrell “Boxer” Wagner, though, said he was frustrated, disappointed and felt blindsided by Nelson’s sudden decision and announcement, which Wagner only learned about after the agenda for the Feb. 19 school board meeting was released Wednesday morning.
Filed on the regular meeting’s agenda under “Other New Business” are two lines simply asking board members to accept Nelson’s resignation as of June 30. There was no letter in the accompanying packet explaining his decision to leave before his two-year contract is up.
The board has the authority to decide whether to let him go early.
But Nelson said he still intends to help resolve the teacher contract negotiations before he leaves, or at least leave them in a state where his successor can easily move forward.
“I think I look for us to finalize the teacher contract before next summer, and if not, I think we got the ball rolling here,” he said.
After a resounding rejection of the last contract offer in October, Local 331, which represents about 70 teachers, and the board’s negotiations team finally met again last week in order to reintroduce themselves to each other and have some initial discussions (See accompanying story.).
Nelson said International Falls isolated location atop Minnesota played a factor in his decision. He said it’s a long drive to the places he services, and it’s much easier to conduct his business, which the board recently gave him formal permission to continue doing as long as it did not interfere with his job, from a much more central location.
When Nelson took the position, his wife stayed behind in Stearns County.
“It’s mostly just because of the distance and the upcoming year,” said Nelson, who’s been involved in education for more than three decades.
Nelson is now the “seventh or eighth superintendent we’ve had since I’ve been on the board,” said Wagner, who was first elected 16 years ago.
“It’s really disappointing,” Wagner said. “I thought we were really coming together as a board, and Nordy was doing a good job (his latest focus was on updating the district’s curriculum). Hopefully, I can talk him out of it. I don’t know. I’ll talk to rest of the board and see what they think. I’m just disappointed now.
“I really want us still to be able to get the contract done, and I know Nordy will give us 100 percent in what, the five months he has left here. I’ve just seen too many superintendents come and go. And this blindsided us. I think the longest we’ve had a superintendent was three years while I was on the board.
“It’s just frustrating and disappointing. I thought we were all going to do some real good together over the next couple years.”
Wagner said he and his colleagues will discuss the next step likely in closed session after the regular school board meeting.
“I’m not sure yet what we’ll do,” he said.
When Nelson won the job, he beat out Jackie Ward, superintendent of the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School in the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Bena, Minn. He also surpassed Tamara Schultz, the superintendent at East Central School District, serving the cities of Sandstone, Ascov, Bruno and Kerrick, Minn.
When he arrived here last summer, Nelson said, “I was very impressed with the school district and the community of International Falls and the surrounding area. We look forward to continuing a real team effort with the community and school district.”
When Nelson accepted the job, he said he was looking to relocate to a rural setting and had visited and camped in the Falls region before.
And although he bounced around the state a bit in his long career, Nelson’s last two jobs as superintendent combined for a total of 15 years, six and nine years, respectively.
His predecessor, Jeff Peura, resigned from the district June 30 to take the Lake of the Woods School District superintendent and elementary principal positions in Baudette.
