Dressely administers oath of office

Furthermore, we must strive to work together with the superintendent and staff to lead the district forward fulfilling the vision we have created, fostering excellence for every student in the area of academic skills and knowledge, citizenship and personal development.”

Director Jessica Dressely

The organizational meeting of the Hastings School Board on Wednesday, Jan. 3 ushered in change to the board with new chair Carrie Tate now directing the board, which consists of four new school board members.
The board already made two significant changes at the meeting. Pending input from Hastings Community Television and legal counsel, public comment will move back to being televised within the regular board meetings, held the fourth Wednesday of every month. The board also hired a new primary legal counsel, in a move that has roots to the May 2022 censure of then-Director Mike Reis that eventually led to his resignation from the board.
Four new board members were seated and took their oath of office at the onset of the meeting: Philip Biermaier, Matt Bruns, Melissa Millner and Jenny Wiederholt-Pine. The four were the top vote-getters out of nine candidates in the Nov. 7 election.
They replace former Chair Lisa Hedin, Vice Chair Stephanie Malm, Becky Beissel and Brian Davis, all of whom decided against seeking re-election to the board.
Director Jessica Dressely opened the meeting and administered the oath of office, with Bruns, Millner and Biermaier flanking one side of the board table and Wiederholt-Pine across from them, all with right hand raised.
Dressely introduced the oath.
“As a board member, you serve as education’s key advocate on behalf of students and our community to advocate for the vision of our district. Furthermore, we must strive to work together with the superintendent and staff to lead the district forward fulfilling the vision we have created, fostering excellence for every student in the area of academic skills and knowledge, citizenship and personal development.”
With four new voting members joining Tate, Dressely and Mark Zuzek on the board, Dressley opened up nominations for board leadership positions. Zuzek nominated himself and spoke in support of that nomination for several minutes. Zuzek served more than 30 years as a teacher and principal in the Hastings School District and was nominated as teacher of the year and principal of the year in the southern Twin Cities Metro area.
“My proudest honor ever in my life other than being a father was becoming Employee of the Year for Independent School District 200,” said Zuzek.
He also served as superintendent for three years in ISD #917, a consortium district that includes Hastings ISD #200.
“My reputation is that of one that is creative and a big thinker. I’m able to coalesce a lot of different ideas to bring them down to make them practical and implementable,” said Zuzek. “I also know how to represent and how to meet the needs of all students and by that, I mean each and every student. I hope that with a solid leadership team, we will continue to move forward to serve the needs of students, staff, parents, families and businesses and the community as a whole.”
Dressely opened the floor to any other nominations for chair, and Biermaier responded, “I’d like to nominate Director Tate.”
Dressely called for the vote for each candidate, and Tate won the seat with votes from herself, Biermaier, Dressley, Millner and Wiederholt-Pine.
“The chair will preside over the remainder of the meeting,” Dressely announced, as she and Tate switched seats.
Tate called for nominations for vice chair. Millner nominated Dressely, and Bruns nominated Zuzek. The vote came down on the same line as the chair vote, with Dressely getting five votes and Zuzek two.
Unanimous ballots were then received for Millner as board secretary and Zuzek as treasurer.
The board then went through a variety of annual business, reaffirming the Hastings Journal as its official newspaper, as well as setting board compensation (kept the same as last year: board chair at $4,750 annually and directors at $4,250), and selecting financial depositories and auditors.
The board also decided unanimously to move its work sessions to the second Tuesday of each month, with the regular monthly board meeting remaining on the fourth Wednesday.
The board worked its way down the agenda to designating legal counsel. Primary legal counsel has been Squires, Waldspurger & Mace of Minneapolis. John Edison of that firm has been the district’s principal attorney and advocated for the censure of Reis wrote the censure resolution that dictated how Reis could have contact with the district.
Tate voiced the opinion that the firm opened the district up to potential litigation.
“I am personally not in favor of continuing with Squires, Waldspurger & Mace,” she said. “There have been some questions. One big question was during the censure of former Director Reis, their recommendation of the time, place and manner restrictions that were ultimately placed on him left us open for a pretty significant lawsuit. I’ll leave it at that.”
She said the firm also represented the Elk River School Board, where two members were recently censured at a meeting.
“I’ll just say that after watching that meeting and seeing the interaction, I’m not in favor of continuing with this law firm,” said Tate.
Zuzek said that the district needs to keep its relationship with the firm open, though, because of any work presently in progress with the district. He said the district should keep Squires, Waldspurger & Mace “in the bullpen for cases that they’ve participated in in the past. The sensible way to manage it is to take a period of time to move from one law firm to another.”
The board unanimously voted to pick Kennedy & Graven of Minneapolis as its general counsel. The district also will continue with Rawtik, Roszak & Maloney on special education issues and keep Squires, Waldspurger & Mace on for any continuing legal work it has been involved in.
The board also expanded its committee structure. Last year, the board cut out its finance committee, and that was added back in this year. Board committees will include policy, finance, community collaboration and one to work with student school board members. The board will have two student school board members from both the junior and senior classes in coming months.
Tate said she would inform board members of which committee they will serve on.
Public comment has been a big topic of conversation at the board level for the past couple years. It was removed from being part of the regular board meetings in August 2021. It was then set up with two members listening to public comments prior to board meetings in a room adjacent to the Hastings Middle School Media Center where board meetings are held. Last year, the change was made to move it to 15 minutes prior to board meetings, again with a report of what was brought up at board meetings.
Dressely made a motion to move public comment to the regular board meeting, with comments aired as part of the meeting on the HCTV feed, pending approval from HCTV and legal counsel.
Her motion was “for public comments to take place during our regular board meetings, following the recognition of visitors with the location remaining the same, the Middle School Media Center, and pending favorable feedback from other entities that we have to check in with to stream and record. Upon receiving negative feedback, we would revert back to our previous practice until we were able to have a discussion at the board about it again.”
Zuzek said the public comments aired live can be problematic.
“If a person were to make a comment at a board meeting that would be illegal in regard to defamation of character or any private data, there’s no gavel quick enough to stop that comment,” he said. “You can’t take words out of people’s mouths after they’ve said them. I’m suggesting that is a major liability that we will be opening up on behalf of the district.”
Tate pointed out that HCTV will weigh in on if a feed can be cut if necessary. She also was going to confer with other districts that still air public comments and said people will still have to sign up the day prior to board meetings to make public comment and tell the district what they intend to address.
“There’s a document you have to sign and turn in. It’s pretty clear what you’re allowed to say and not say if we do open it up during public time,” she said.
Current policy also dictates that only five speakers can address the board per meeting, and speakers are allotted three minutes.
“I like the during meeting setting,” said Biermaier. “I believe we need to be a little more transparent again. That’s a pretty important step in doing that.”
The measure passed unanimously but was set for further discussion at the Jan. 10 work session.