January 5, 2006 at 6:03 a.m.
Vitalis named to All-State School Board
Vitalis named to All-State School Board
Vitalis has represented the Chisago Lakes School District as a member of the School Board for the past 13 years and served 16 years before that on the Taylors Falls School Board. That’s 29 years dedicated to improving education in the Chisago Lakes area.
Because of his record as a fair, no-nonsense board member who has voted consistently in efforts to improve educational opportunities here, Vitalis was nominated for the distinction of All-State School Board.
The recognition comes from the Minnesota School Board Association, which has 370 member school boards.
Each year, the MSBA names only a handful of school board members to its All-State School Board. This year, Vitalis was recognized with the honor, along with six other school board members from across the state.
Although the MSBA is keeping quiet about the official list of awardees, Chisago Lakes Superintendent Mike McLoughlin was notified of Vitalis’s inclusion among the honorees in December. The All-State School Board members will be officially recognized at a Jan. 14 awards ceremony, during the annual MSBA conference.
While Vitalis is very eager to talk about both the accomplishments and struggles that have faced the two school boards he has served, he is much more reserved and humble when talking about his role in the successes of this district.
He was first elected to the Taylors Falls School Board in 1976, when Bill Young was the board chair. At the time, school board members were elected to three-year terms, with elections in April and appointments starting in June.
His first challenge as a board member was to work with the board to hire a new Taylors Falls Superintendent. The search ended with the hiring of Sig Rimestad, who would serve as superintendent until Taylors Falls became part of the Chisago Lakes School District in 1992.
The next year, Vitalis remembers Young talking to spectators before a basketball game at Taylors Falls.
“He told them about new legislation proposed to have one school district for every county,” Vitalis said.
This idea then spurred the introduction of Planning, Evaluation and Reporting (PER) for school districts to report all school information back to the state.
As the Taylors Falls School District moved into the 1980s, Vitalis said the board was expecting a huge population boom over the next 20 years.
“They predicted Taylors Falls would have a school population of over 2,000 by the year 2000,” Vitalis said.
Obviously, the boom never ocurred and when Governor Rudy Perpich introduced open enrollment, student numbers started declining at Taylors Falls.
Vitalis credits Rimestad with keeping things afloat at Taylors Falls through the decade.
“He tried a lot of new things even though we were losing money,” Vitalis said. He recalls that the last two teacher contracts settled in the district froze wages, with increases only in health insurance coverage.
It came time to look at options to save the district. “We had options, we could have kept going until the state shut us down,” Vitalis said. “But we owed it to our teachers not to do that.”
At one time, the board finalized the option of merging with the St. Croix Falls School District across the river. That school board also approved the measure. It was eventually negated when some St. Croix Falls district staff and employees objected to the idea, Vitalis said.
The board then turned to Chisago Lakes School District, where Darrold Williams was serving as superintendent.
The Taylors Falls school merged with Chisago Lakes and along with it, the two school boards.
Vitalis, along with two other members, were chosen for the new board. No seats were removed from the previous Chisago Lakes School Board, so the board had 10 members for a while, Vitalis said.
One of the former Taylors Falls board members retired the following year and the other lost a reelection bid, leaving Vitalis as the lone Taylors Falls representative in the second year of the consolidation.
Vitalis said he never felt like an outsider and the transition was an easy one.
“We heard horror stories and there were definitely hard feelings,” Vitalis said.
Even his own family expressed opinions against the consolidation, Vitalis said. Especially his son, who had to leave Taylors Falls as a junior and spend his senior year in a new school.
“But you take everything into consideration, it was a very smooth transition and we didn’t know what we would have done without the consolidation,” Vitalis said.
Some parents in Center City and Shafer were concerned that their children would now be attending elementary school at Taylors Falls Elementary, Vitalis said, but those attitudes have changed. “It is recognized as a very good school,” he said.
Things weren’t rosy in the beginning at the Chisago Lakes School Board either, Vitalis said.
The district had been gaining 100 students each year, but the population began to level off and so did enrollment.
“They were in trouble, so the decision was made to cut $1.2 million,” Vitalis said. To save that kind of money, the tough decision was made to cut extracurriculuar programs at Chisago Lakes Middle School. “It’s a decision we’re still suffering from,” Vitalis said.
At the same time, School Board Chairman Harold Taggatz was dying from cancer. Vitalis said it was a low point for every board member.
In those first few years, the board also pondered the decision of changing from all-day, every other day kindergarten, to all-day kindergarten, five days a week.
The alternate day schedule for kindergarten was simply not working, Vitalis said. “Because of holidays and other days off, you’d have a stretch where kindergartners didn’t go to school for almost two weeks,” he said.
The board realized all-day, every day kindergarten wouldn’t work at the Primary School because of both space and monetary issues. But it did like the idea of implementing the scheduling change at Taylors Falls Elementary. Actually, it was Vitalis who first posed the idea.
He quickly found out how parents felt about it. They came to a meeting and said doing it differently at Taylors Falls would just divide the school from the rest of the district once again, Vitalis said. “So we backed off on that,” he said.
Another tough decision the board faced was transportation. Vitalis said the district was looking at a fleet of buses that were wearing out in the 90’s and running a bus garage without a sufficiently skilled transportation director. Insurance for part-time bus drivers was also very costly, Vitalis said, so the board made the decision to contract with Hunts Transportation for bussing services.
Vitalis said through all the tough decisions he has helped to make in his years with the Chisago Lakes School Board, he has always felt respected as a board member.
“I’ve gotten a lot of calls and letters about things people wanted me to do, but they were only about three things – the kindergarten and bus issues and cutting funds,” Vitalis said.
He said the current board works very well together. While they may not always vote unanimously, the members agree to disagree and respect everyone’s views.
Something opened his eyes at one MSBA conference he attended, Vitalis said.
He watched a school board from another district hold an organizational meeting to pick a board chair.
“They spent the entire meeting arguing about who should be chair – and then never did choose,” he said. “Here, it’s always been what is best for the district.”
He remembers only one 3-3 tie on a board vote – when the district was considering adding girls hockey. Vitalis said he voted for the addition, but others had concerns about escalating costs from adding high school sports. After discussing it further, the sport was added. “It was the only time I wished there was a seven-member board,” he said.
Vitalis answers honestly when asked why he has been on the school board this long.
“I don’t know. But I love the kids and that connection,” he said. “If I hadn’t been a teacher or substitute all these years, I don’t think I would’ve stayed on the board. Now I can make a difference the kids.”
Vitalis started his teaching career working at inner city schools in Minneapolis. Although he is officially retired, he continues to substitute teach at Taylors Falls Elementary. School Board rules allow for board members to work for the district, but the amount of earnings is restricted.
Most days he is assigned to teach at Taylors Falls, staff members find a homemade dessert waiting for them in the teacher’s lounge, courtesy of Vitalis.
Vitalis is honored to be named to the All-State School Board, yet at the same time feels the accolades are a bit much. “It’s not easy because then you feel like you have to live up to that,” he said. “It’s a lot of pressure and very humbling.”
He knows letters of nomination were written on his behalf by several people, including McLoughlin, Young, Taylors Falls Principal Joe Thimm and the other three superintendents who have served while he has been on the board.
Vitalis was also honored with a plaque from the MSBA when he reached his 20th year on the board and two years ago recognized for attending his 100th hour of MSBA conferences.
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