Northland School Board: Board Discontinues Superintendent Agreement with Hill City

   In a special board meeting held Mon., May 2 the decision to discontinue the Purchase of Services Agreement with Hill City for Superintendent services was made on a 5-2 roll call vote. Board members Aaron Ammerman, Linda Knox, Seth Robison, Tyler Seifert, Terri Nystrom, Bill Wake and Board Chair Marc Ruyak were all in attendance for the discussion.

   Ruyak opened the meeting by first having the board approve a special compensation for elementary teachers that are required to move classrooms. The option that was approved was to shorten the elementary calendar by one day plus pay the teachers required to move classrooms for eight hours of extended time. This motion was made by Knox with Wake seconding the motion and all members approving unanimously.

   Ruyak then set the guidelines for the next discussion by stating there were three topics of concern . Those topics were relating to Superintendent contract, performance and service agreement with Hill City. The contract itself is an independent issue and would not be discussed at the current meeting, along with performance. The only thing up for discussion during the current meeting was the service agreement with Hill City.

   During the previous regular board meeting held April 21 the service agreement presented for discussion detailed Northland Community Schools would pay 60% of the Superintendent’s gross salary and 40% of benefits offered to the Superintendent. During that discussion some board members were not in favor of paying those percentages and favored a 50/50 split between the two schools. In Monday’s meeting a revised service agreement from Hill City was presented to the board with Northland paying 55% of the Superintendent’s gross salary and 45% of benefits offered to the Superintendent.

   Discussion between board members still included the feeling that salary and benefits should be split evenly between the two schools due to the Superintendent not physically being at the school the majority of the time. It was also brought up that payment should be split based on student enrollment for each school, and with Northland having approximately 370 students enrolled this year compared to Hill City having 245 students, a split of 55/45 seemed reasonable. Another point brought up was that perhaps Northland should be the school in charge of the contract for the Superintendent with Hill City paying for the services.

   Another option discussed was the possibility of hiring either a Superintendent or a Superintendent/Principal. Ruyak felt now is not the right time to pursue that option because there is only two months left on the current Superintendent contract and with the current multi-million dollar construction projects beginning things might get missed in a transition of leadership. Ruyak stated a year from now would perhaps be a more appropriate time as that would give the board a year to discuss their options and the construction project would be complete.

   Wake brought up another factor to consider in this decision was the fact that currently Northland and Hill City share several job positions and coop several sports. It was a concern if the agreement is discontinued, Hill City may choose to discontinue the other agreements currently in place, and have an adverse affect on students. Currently there is a great working relationship and collaboration with Hill City, and he would hate to ruin it over what was mentioned to be $16,000.

   After all board members expressed their thoughts and opinions, Ammerman made a motion to discontinue the Purchase of Services Agreement with Hill City for Superintendent Services, Knox seconded the motion. Ruyak called for a roll call vote with the following voting results: Nystrom - Aye, Wake - Nay, Ammerman - Aye, Seifert - Aye, Robison - Aye, Knox - Aye and Ruyak - Nay. With a 5-2 vote services will be discontinued effective midnight on June 30, 2022.

   Next scheduled meetings are: regular meeting, Thurs., May 19 at 5:30 p.m., all meetings are held at Northland High School.