ROBBINSDALE, Minn. — The Robbinsdale school district is in the midst of contract negotiations with the teacher's union and some of those teachers rallied outside a school board meeting Wednesday night.
The meeting was closed to the public as board members further discussed what the agenda called "labor negotiations strategy".
Robbinsdale is one of more than 100 districts across the state still negotiating contracts that expired last June. The statewide teacher's union, Education Minnesota, says it's the slowest settlement pace in 20 years.
In Robbinsdale, the two sides are set to enter into mediation on February 13. At the last check, 45 other districts have also used mediation.
But that's just one of the district's challenges - that also includes the resignation of its superintendent, enrollment declines and millions of dollars in cuts, some coming by the end of this school year.
"I've never seen a climate quite like the one we're in this year," said Peter Eckhoff, the president of the Robbinsdale Federation of Teachers. He says the union is asking for a more competitive pay raise and more insurance contributions from the district.
"If folks can't afford to work in Robbinsdale, there are other places that are looking for our skill sets," said Eckhoff. "We want them to stay here, we want them to feel valued here."
There are some staffing shortages, but what's mostly missing are the students.
The new school board chair, ReNae Bowman, says enrollment is so low, it may have to make up to $17 million in budget cuts by the end of the 2025 school year.
"I don't take it lightly and I suspect very few of the school board members sleep at night," said Bowman.
When asked where some of those cuts would come from, Bowman answered, "They're going to come from a variety of areas. We're going to look for those positions that are not face-to-face with students, obviously first."
Bowman was appointed at the beginning of the month, admitting the board is also in disarray and without a superintendent after David Engstrom resigned last September. She says the district has hired a search firm and is surveying the community about what attributes they're looking for in the next hire.
"This is not going to be an autopilot job for whoever steps into it," said Bowman. "It really comes at a time where we really need to right-size the district."
Both sides admit challenging times are ahead, but they can agree it's also filled with hope.
"One thing I know about this board is that every single person on this board wants what’s best for the students in our district," said Bowman.
"We have many marvelous opportunities for students and we hope that magnet will continue to bring them forward and continue to allow us to do the job we do well," said Eckhoff.
Bowman says the district got about $40 million in new legislative funding, but it's unclear how that's being spent. She does want to invest in career and technical education and computer science classes to stay relevant and create better pathways for graduating students.
The school board will also have to approve a new budget for all this in May.
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