With time running out, Sartell school board approves employee contracts — but not without a fight

SARTELL, MINN. - Twenty-one employees of the Sartell-St. Stephen school district who feared they'd be out of work come Monday will stay in their jobs, following contract approvals made at a packed meeting Friday night.

The school board has argued for months over whether to approve the contracts collectively, on the recommendation of Interim Superintendent Tom Lee, or separately as desired by board members Emily Larson, Jen Smith and Scott Wenshau, who repeatedly voted against approving the contracts together.

After a bit more back-and-forth Friday, board members approved 20 contracts on individual motions and voted to extend the contract of the district's human resources director to give incoming superintendent Mike Rivard a chance to review it.

Smith said she was concerned the human resources director's contract was listed at 0.8 hours rather than full-time. "I'm not sure that I know of any district of our size that has [that for] their director of human resources," she said. But after the meeting, Lee said he thought that concerns over that position had to do with something other than full-time status.

Lee has stated that Larson and Smith approached him with concerns about an employee, and that their recent actions and that of Wenshau seemed to be "an effort to get rid of an individual [they] have a vendetta against." Lee did not name the employee, but there is widespread speculation in the community that the three are targeting the human resources director.

More than 150 people showed up for the meeting, with attendees spilling out into the hallway. Some held signs in support of the employees whose contracts were being voted on.

At the beginning of the meeting, Board Chair Tricia Meling said she had received more than 100 emails and a petition with 800 signatures in support of approving the contracts together. But Larson, Smith and Wenshau — who ran as a conservative slate in 2022 and typically vote as a group — said board members have the ability to remove an agenda item that can stand on its own for individual consideration, such as the separate contracts.

The employees whose contracts were voted on include directors of business services and technology, as well as IT specialists who also provide services for the city of Sartell.

After the contracts were voted down at the June 17 meeting, Meling set a special meeting for June 25 to hold another vote. But Larson, Smith and Wenshau were no-shows and didn't ask to join the meeting virtually. Friday's meeting was the board's last chance to approve the contracts before they expired and the employees lost their jobs.

Lee has said the board's role is to oversee the superintendent and create policies for the district, not act as a manager and oversee operations. He told board members he thought it would be a dangerous precedent to have "the board, with no supervisory responsibility, … pick somebody off that they just don't like."

Board Member Matt Moehrle echoed Lee's concerns on Friday, saying "effectively changing the tool by which these folks would be evaluated at this point is unfair to them," and warned it could lead to a lawsuit against the district.

Rivard, an assistant superintendent with the St. Cloud Area School District, will take over as Sartell-St. Stephen superintendent on July 1. Lee said he will miss his colleagues but not the board's politics.

"My hope for this community is they can put the past behind them and look to the future," he said Friday.