Anoka-Hennepin school board, with members evenly split, fails to elect leader

The Anoka-Hennepin school board, nearly one month into its new term, deadlocked Saturday over who should chair the governing body.

The six-member board met Saturday morning in hopes of setting a leadership structure and electing officers. But no official votes on either item materialized. Instead, board members spent more than two hours looking for common ground and calling for some kind of compromise.

"The thing that we're all getting stuck on is this idea of trust," Board Member Zach Arco said. "We want to trust but there isn't a level of trust there yet."

The impasse over leadership illustrates the deep divisions in the north metro school district, which at nearly 37,000 students counts as Minnesota's largest, and echoes fierce school board battles playing out across Minnesota and the country.

November's elections led to an even ideological split on the Anoka-Hennepin board. Arco and Linda Hoekman, both backed backed by the Minnesota Parents Alliance, won their contests, joining Matt Audette to form a conservative bloc aligned with the so-called "parent's rights movement."

Both recited the oath of office with hands placed on a Bible held by Audette.

Michelle Langenfeld, a former district employee and retired Wisconsin schools superintendent, was sworn in on Jan. 8, alongside Arco and Hoekman. She and board members Jeff Simon and Kacy Deschene were backed by the local teachers union in their elections, forming a progressive counter to the conservative bloc.

"We're all here for the same reason — to raise student achievement and lift up every child," Langenfeld said of the board as a whole. "At the end of the day, we may not all agree but our hearts and intentions are together."

Last year's school board contests came amid a tide of escalating polarization in the non-partisan races. They were also the most expensive in several suburban districts' history — candidates and outside political organizations spent nearly $140,000 in the run-up to the election.

Audette previously set the district's record for campaign spending by raising more than $30,000 to win his seat in 2021. He was disillusioned by his first two years on the board, repeatedly rebuffed when he asked to add items to meeting agendas.

On Saturday, Audette proposed electing co-chairs. Both would have a say in how the agenda for each meeting comes together.

"The majority will prevail, the minority will be heard and the meeting will be run efficiently," Audette said.

That proposal did not gain traction as board members repeatedly tussled over how a shared leadership structure might work. As Saturday's meeting wound down, Simon said his experience over the past two years on the board made it impossible to back any of Audette's bids for leadership.

"My trust has been eroded," Simon said. "I cannot vote for Matt for chair, co-chair or any other leadership position."

Deschene, in an interview after the board meeting, echoed those sentiments, pointing to Audette's "past behavior" but not elaborating.

"I trust Jeff," she said.

Hoekman, meanwhile, said watching Audette maneuver through his first two years on the board inspired her to quit her job as a district teacher and run to be his ally.

"One of the reasons I tried to run for the board was because of Matt," Hoekman said in support of his bid for the chairmanship. "It broke my heart to walk away."

The leadership standstill comes as the Anoka-Hennepin School District is in the midst of negotiating new contracts with several of its employee unions. District leaders said on Saturday they had reached a tentative agreement with the bargaining unit for the teachers union. Neither side disclosed details.

School boards, by default, consist of six members according to state law. But a district may expand its governing body to add an extra seat. In Lakeville, voters approved a seventh position for that district's school board in 2021.

Audette said electing a leader is one of the few circumstances where an evenly split vote can grind things to a halt.

"Usually, if you have a vote on a policy, if there's no clear majority, then it doesn't go forward," Audette said. "This is one of those few instances where you need more than half of us to agree."