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AARON OLSON

• What do you see as a great opportunity in the district, and on the other side, what do you see as a great challenge in the district?

Our high school technical program, Career Pathways, is an amazing opportunity for our students and companies looking for skilled workers. According to the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) there are about 30,000 open jobs in the trades and manufacturing in our state. Not only are there immediate job openings, but these are also lucrative career paths. I have reached out to multiple companies to talk with them about the opportunities available for students to enter their workforce upon graduation. This is definitely something that differentiates Chisago Lakes and provides a great opportunity for our students.

The greatest challenge I see for our district is communicating with members of our community—particularly those who do not have school-aged children. Our community plays an important role in helping determine which values and learning are the best for our students. We should be reaching out via multiple communication platforms and providing visibility into our programs and spending. More importantly, we need to build the trust of our community members by providing visibility, honesty, and accountability.

• In an era of more limited financial resources, how would you work on getting support for potential future referendums, bond issues or public school spending from voters with no children in the public schools? How can the school board prove itself accountable to those citizens?

My area of expertise is in large multi-million-dollar commercial construction projects, including government contracts and school buildings. My insights in public contracts could help save our taxpayers up to 30% on upcoming projects included in the current bond. I can be trusted to navigate the complex nature of architects, general contractors and subcontractors, change orders, and government rules on these projects, thus helping to assure our entire community that we are being watchdogs over every dollar spent. I believe that honesty and transparency play a key role in helping to get support from the entire community for future referendums. I encourage community members to do their own research regarding the current referendum. Details can be found on the school district website at https://www.isd2144.org/referendum.

To be most successful moving forward, the school board not only needs to be transparent and willing to provide the details of each ask, but more importantly, they need to be held accountable for the results. We need to be methodical about our approach and communication methods for every decision. Additionally, with each ask, we need to be sure our school board is representing the values and needs of our community.

• Many local parents have chosen alternative methods of schooling (Online/charter and private). How does the district get families to commit to Chisago Lakes and stick with them?

While the Chisago Lakes School District does offer an array of alternative learning options for our students, we need to be sure that we’re highlighting those opportunities to our community, and that we are constantly striving to meet the needs of our students, our parents, and our community through the programs we offer.

To build rapport with our families, we need to be sure we’re listening to their wants, needs, concerns, and feedback—good and bad. Again, we need to be sure that we build a proven and effective communications program to provide consistent information and involvement.

• Do you believe the district needs to address their academic curriculum and offerings? What specific changes would you recommend?

The Chisago Lakes School District does offer a robust list of academic classes and programs, there is always room for improvement. We need to strive to not only be the best school district within our immediate area, but rather within the top five districts in the State. This can be done by ensuring that our teachers are able to focus on the basic fundamentals of school learning and that we’re choosing curriculums that best fit our community values.

The school board plays an important role in making sure that we are able to offer this best-fit curriculum for our community through its policies. While we need to follow some recommended curriculum from the Minnesota Department of Education, our schools must also reinforce a sense of autonomy and independence in our decision- making.

SARAH AADLAND 

• What do you see as a great opportunity in the district, and on the other side, what do you see as a great challenge in the district?

I believe rebuilding a strong foundation of trust and transparency is the biggest opportunity ahead of us. It’s been a battering few years for our kids, families, and community, but we have a lot to be proud of in Chisago Lakes.

Here are just two recent examples. Chisago is leading the state effort toward better literacy education. We were one of the first districts to train our educators in LTRS, an evidence-based, phonics-based literacy instruction, earning us a grant to support the addition of a literacy coach who can help teachers implement this training in their classrooms. We can see the impact of this new training on student assessments, as they have made remarkable year-over-year gains of 8 to 10 percent. This is just one way that Chisago is bringing new energy to providing a strong foundation in basic fundamentals.

At the high school level, Chisago teachers from our Career and Technical Education program – which provides students with hands-on experience in a variety of fields including agriculture, health sciences, and more – recently received an award for statewide excellence. When I bring these two examples up around educators, they are quick to point out other areas where Chisago has been at the front of the charge for excellence in student education at every level. 

For our size, we do a remarkable job of connecting kids with a wide variety of educational and extra-curricular activities, so remarkable that local businesses and colleges are eager to partner with us to train their future workforce. As a district, we strive to expand and deepen these partnerships in order to connect students with even more opportunities.

By effectively communicating the breadth of work being done in our schools and creating more opportunities for our community to ask questions and share concerns, I think we can cultivate a culture of transparency around the innovative work happening across the district. 

At the same time, we need to be more clear and consistent when communicating the challenges our district is facing. Like other districts outside of the metro, our budget is getting squeezed by inflation, increasing mandates, and a lack of federal follow-through on promised funding. 

In addition to the core work of setting policy and balancing the budget, school board members need to be ambassadors, keeping our kids, families, and community front of mind at the board table and communicating the work we’re doing as a district to our broader community. 

• In an era of more limited financial resources, how would you work on getting support for potential future referendums, bond issues or public school spending from voters with no children in the public schools? How can the school board prove itself accountable to those citizens?

Again, support and accountability arise from a sense of connection and trust, two things we need to actively earn from our community. 

Our new Superintendent has already begun some of that work, offering a “State of the Schools” update at city councils across the district, meetings you can view online if you’d like.  We’re finding it’s easier to take the message of what’s happening in Chisago Lakes schools to our various audiences, rather than hoping our newsletters and social media stories somehow break through the noise of Netflix, YouTube, and all the rest. 

Personally, I like the way some school boards host annual community forums, offering opportunities to ask questions, share successes and concerns, and learn about what our schools are doing for our students. I would like to help create opportunities like this – something that could be viewed online for those unable to attend – in order to help more people in our community feel connected to and knowledgeable about the education Chisago Lakes is offering our kids.  

I would also like to take this opportunity to invite our broader community to participate in school events, like the high school musical – this year The Addams Family is playing November 10th to 19th – or the Christmas in Chisago concert coming up  December 2nd.  Many districts our size have been forced to cut programs like these in recent years. I’ve worked with school board members from neighboring districts who are still mourning this loss, cut because state funding has just not kept up for schools outside the metro.

As a Chisago Lakes mom, I’m so proud to raise my kids in a community that values this breadth of opportunity. As a board member, I’m committed to supporting the broad array of academic and extra-curricular options we provide for Chisago Lakes. And I think we need to be creative and persistent about spreading the word among people who aren’t directly connected to the school. Events like these, along with sporting events, one-act plays, and so many others provide a wonderful opportunity to bring all corners of our community together, and they enrich us all.

• Many local parents have chosen alternative methods of schooling (Online/charter and private). How does the district get families to commit to Chisago Lakes and stick with them?

First, I think it’s important to respect the choices families are making. As parents, we’ve gotten used to having options in recent years, and those of us who enjoyed teaching and learning with our kids during the pandemic disruption may want to pursue avenues that work uniquely for them. As a parent, I get that. As a district, we need to continue to look for more ways to serve families' needs meaningfully. 

Second – and I may be a broken record here – we need to do a better job sharing the story of how effective our educational outcomes are in Chisago Lakes. We have a 93 percent graduation rate, ten points above the state average and higher than surrounding schools. Our students outperform neighboring districts when it comes to learning the basics, and we offer incredible options for students to discover their strengths and interests as they move from elementary through middle and high school. 

The LTRS training I mentioned is part of the foundation we’ve laid to get students back on track as quickly as possible after the pandemic-related disruption we all experienced. Chisago Lakes is leading the charge toward “back to normal,” exceeding the scores of comparable districts in our region, and across the state.   

As I’ve been out in the community talking to parents and educators around the district, sharing some of Chisago’s success, various people like to point out the excellence they see from their perspective. Middle school parents are sharing that their students have made the jump from elementary school with more ease, support, and optimism than expected. Elementary school parents are sharing that their children are gaining confidence and excitement for what they’re learning and enthusiasm for their wildcat school community. 

At the high school level, the breadth and depth of the work Chisago Lakes High School does to connect kids with a path to their future is truly impressive. Whether your student is interested in engineering or mechanics, agriculture or child development, or something else entirely, CLHS offers a variety of opportunities to deepen that knowledge, engage with potential career and collegiate opportunities, and explore what comes next. 

I know parents are always looking to enrich their kid's experiences. By celebrating our offerings, we can give families in alternative arrangements the opportunity to reconnect with Chisago Lakes if it’s right for them. 

Our schools are for our whole community, and I believe in looking for financially responsible ways to serve all of our kids. For a time, we even looked at offering an online program within Chisago but competing in that space was challenging given our limited resources and the breadth of options already available. Ultimately, it wasn’t something we chose to move ahead with. Whether students take advantage of our schools’ programming as it works for them or are among the more than 3,000 students in Chisago who consider school a “second home” with classes, sports, and activities, I believe there is room to innovate for all kids in our community.

• Do you believe the district needs to address their academic curriculum and offerings? What specific changes would you recommend?

There is always more we could be offering, though responsible budget management keeps my educational wishlist in check. The middle school bore the brunt of cuts a few years ago, and the levy question on the ballot this year is our opportunity to build back allied industrial arts and social studies cuts that could round out the Middle School Model and fully support the academic needs of those kids. 

If the federal government actually honored the promise it made in 1975 when they passed the IDEA Act and committed to fund 40 percent of the cost of that landmark – and crucial – act to support special education, we would have more funds for some of the unique academic offerings available in bigger  districts. It would be wonderful to offer language classes at younger ages, make more investments in math and STEM offerings, and reintroduce elementary science specialists. That said, I’m proud of the strong foundation and variety of opportunities our district offers our Chisago Lakes students. 

The district is working to build relationships with college programs that are training the next generation of educators – a proactive way to address the impact of the national teacher shortage by creating an opportunity for new graduates to feel connected to Chisago schools. As Superintendent Dietz works to build these relationships, he’s discovering that colleges are eager to place their students with a district that is offering a strong, 21st century foundation in educational excellence. 

That said, as a board member, I’m committed to connecting with our local and national leaders to share what we’re experiencing here in Chisago. If that 1975 federal commitment to educating all students was honored, or even improved, our community would be able to reserve levy questions for special academic offerings that our whole community is inspired by, rather than relying on levies to support our basic educational needs. 

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