At the December 10, 2025, school board meeting, board members David Sowinski, Katie Priebe, Tom Keefe, Josh Thompson, Jill Harstad and Mark Johnsrud were present. Also present were Superintendent Ed Harris, elementary principal, Shane McBroom and high school principal, Eric Nelson. Student senate representatives Allia Whalen and Ella Whalen were also present.
Consent Agenda
Under the consent agenda the board approved the following:
- Minutes of the November 12 meeting;
- New hires: Angela Severson, Winter Concession Advisor;
- Resignation: Chris Dornack, eighth grade baseball.
Reports
Student senate representative Allia Whalen shared with the board that they are working on events for Snow Week in March. They will be selling donuts and cookies and designated dress-up days for the week. They are also bringing back the Snowball Dance that hasn’t been held for several year.
All three administrators thanked the CEF (Chatfield Education Foundation) for the tremendous event in November that raised $100,000 for school related projects and/or purchasing equipment for the classrooms. Shane McBroom stated that the Holiday Concert for primary grades will be on Tuesday, December 16 and will be held at the Center for the Arts for the first time. There will not be a matinee concert this year. He reported that the new initiative this year with READ, DEED, and MOVE had a coin drive for their DEED activity. Their goal was to raise $500 for the local food shelf. McBroom said that they “knocked it out of the park and raised $1807.72.” For the fourth year the elementary partnered with Choose Chatfield to decorate the Christmas trees in the city park. The staff put up the lights and the students braved the cold and decorated their grade’s tree with ornaments they had made.
Eric Nelson reported on the Reading Skills course that has been taught in the high school by Robyn Lampert and Blake Jansen for the last three years. While reading skills are not typically taught beyond sixth grade and English courses shift to other curricular areas like literature, writing and speaking; some students struggle with these new curricular areas because their skills in reading were not fully developed at the time that intentional reading instruction ended. The Reading Skills class was put in place to strengthen the reading levels of 11th and 12th grade students that demonstrated low performance on the 10th grade MCA reading test and by recommendations from English and history teachers who identified students who struggled with reading in the content areas. There has been success with this class and the results for most students have been impressive. The students in the course in the term that just ended have shown impressive improvements using pre- and post-test assessments. Reading will continue to be a target of attention at the high school level and there is a new assessment tool, CAPTI ReadBasix, which will be used to provide information about students that allows better intervention to improve their skills. He also reported on the M-State (Minnesota State Community and Technical College) partnership that offers students PSEO options, has been financially advantageous for the district. Credits through this program are about $100 less than credits taken from other local technical schools and has saved the district about $35,000.
Superintendent Harris gave a presentation for Truth and Taxation, explaining what the district proposed tax levy would be. He recommended the track resurface to be done in the summer of 2026 through a local tax levy and that the baseball dugout refurbishment be done in the spring of 2026 through LTFM (Long-Term Facility Maintenance) monies. Another tax levy that proposed a complete renovation of the tennis courts and a new batting cage was discussed at length by the board. The general consensus was that the tennis courts could be done at another time. The issue with the batting cage is that there are some safety concerns and the board will look at this in January. The board approved the total Certified Final Levy-2025 payable in 2026, without the tennis court project, at $3,504,361. The overall levy would be -3.49%. Under other action items the board approved the resolution, Directing the administration to make Recommendations for Reductions in Programs and Positions and Reasons. This is done every year at this time for budgeting purposes. They also approved the Comprehensive Achievement and Civic Readiness Annual Report, formerly the World’s Best Workforce.
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