The ISD 200 School Board met on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 to discuss filling the vacant board seat, the upcoming special election and beginning the search for the district’s next superintendent.
While much of the discussion at the Wednesday meeting was dominated by the board’s vote to sunset Policy 100: Equity and Diversity, the board voted and moved forward with several different issues.

Special election
The board moved forward with the plan to hold a special election in November with five polling places in order to fill the board’s empty seat. The board had previously discussed holding the election with a single polling place in order to save money, but decided against it due to the volume of expected voters and potential voter suppression of a single polling place.
Potential voter suppression was School Board Chair Carrie Tate’s “biggest concern.”
The total cost of holding an election with five polling places was estimated to be some $23,000, roughly $13,000 more than is the district would have a single polling place. That cost is in addition to the vast amount of staff time that goes along with setting up an election that the district was trying to avoid when it voted last year to switch to even-year elections.
Roughly 7,000 voters are expected for the special election. The seat is vacant after the death of board member Jenny Wiederholt-Pine.

Filling vacant seats
Before the November election to seat a permanent member on the board, the school board held interviews on Monday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 2 to interview candidates to temporarily fill the vacant seat.
Seven candidates were selected to be interviewed: William Beck, Chad Neuharth, Elaine Mikel-Mulder, Theresa Auge, Katherine Szepieniec, Mariah Ring and Lisa Hedin.
The temporary member will serve through the end of the year before being replaced by the winner of the November election.

Superintendent
With Superintendent Dr. Tammy Champa’s acceptance of the superintendent role in the Owatonna School District, ISD 200 is now at the beginning of a new superintendent search. As per district policy, the district will use a search firm to find the next superintendent. The board moved forward with using the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) as a search firm.
The search is expected to cost the district $12,400. The board met on Thursday, April 3 in a special meeting to discuss the timeline, hiring criteria, and procedures.