Education Notebook

ARTICLE: Rochester school board announces primary, candidate filing dates

Rochester residents, get your pens ready for a primary school board election.

The school board Tuesday night announced dates of a possible upcoming primary, along with the dates that prospective candidates can file for election.

Four current board members will be up for re-election: Fred Daly, Diane Hermann Blakley, Mechelle Severson and Sandra Soltis. None of the incumbents have officially stated intentions to run.

Daly has said he will wait until the filing period to announce his intentions; Soltis said she doesn't plan to seek reelection. Hermann Blakley said she is leaning toward not running again and Severson said she would be willing to step aside too.

Interested candidates can file for office May 18 through June 1 at the Edison Administration Building, 615 Seventh St. S.W. (There is a $2 filing fee.) The general election will be held Nov. 2, and a primary election, if needed, will be held Aug. 10.

Two candidates announce intent to run for Rochester school board

Two former candidates for Rochester school board have been spotted at recent board meetings and both confirmed plans to run again this fall.

Michael Resman and Richard Hinds are the two candidates who have already thrown their hats into the ring. Current board members Sandra Soltis, Diane Hermann Blakley, Fred Daly and Mechelle Severson are up for re-election.

Soltis said she is planning on ruling out another run. Hermann Blakley is leaning against running again, Severson said she hasn't ultimately decided but wouldn't be opposed to not running again and Daly has chosen to not disclose his intentions at this time.

Both Resman and Hinds ran for Breanna Bly's seat in 2008, with Resman falling second with 25 percent of the vote and Hinds finishing fifth with about 11 percent of the vote. Bly, who was reelected, received 39 percent.

This time around, Resman will run for the seat currently held by Fred Daly.

Resman in 2008 received the endorsement of the Rochester Education Association and worked for many years with Rochester public schools and has popularity among teachers from his work at the REA negotiating table. (He has since retired.)

Resman, a Quaker, has also grabbed local headlines with his pamphlet, “Special Education as a Spiritual Journey." According to a 2007 P-B story, he believes that that during funerals he has seen the souls of former students ascend to heaven, but he doesn't talk about those experiences while in the school buildings.

"If you were to talk with people in the (school) building, I think they would know that I lead a religious life, but I don’t talk about these experiences there. I think you’d get a variety of reactions, some of which are, “Is this guy nuts?" I mean, that would be a pretty typical reaction, a total rejection of it. Except among my own religious peers, I live a double life," he told a P-B reporter.

Hinds, meanwhile, will run for the seat currently held by Hermann Blakley.

Hinds, who works in respiratory therapy at Mayo Clinic, has said his up-bringing in an underprivileged, single-parent family in North Dakota has given him the desire to run. “Education was virtually all I had," he told the P-B in 2008.

Jeff Kennelly, the only other candidate in 2008 to receive the REA's endorsement, has said he is not interested in running again.

Article: Dallemand makes impassioned speeech in welcoming back staff

Rochester Superintendent of Schools Romain Dallemand often takes a subdued role at the school board table. He offers opinion when asked and usually talks in a reserved tone. For the people who only know him from that experience, Monday's Welcome Back to Teachers must have been quite an awakening.

Dallemand made an impassioned speech to school staff, thanking them and also encouraging them to keep working hard this year.

At times, he's been criticized by some for coming off too prepared or for reading directly from remarks in front of him. This time, he said he "spoke from the heart," without a script. (Whether the speech was prepared or not, you can't debate how passionately he delivered it.)

Article:

As Rochester schools Superintendent Romain Dallemand welcomed back teachers this year, he told them about a 15-year-old Haitian immigrant who couldn't speak English and how a high school English teacher transformed the student into a school superintendent.

Dallemand told them about himself.

On Monday morning, the Rochester School Board and Dallemand welcomed back district staff. Also on hand were State Education Commissioner Alice Seagren and Mayor Ardell Brede.

Through the help of a diligent teacher, Dallemand said, he graduated from high school on time and attended college.

"She saved me from myself," Dallemand said. "She had very high expectations for me. I didn't like it then, but boy, do I like it today."

When Dallemand spoke, he went without a script, he said, "from the heart."

Challenging year

Last school year was full of challenges that included $9.1 million in budget cuts and differing views -- sometimes contentious -- over the school district's current five-year plan to increase student proficiency.

Dallemand thanked teachers and several groups of employees -- from maintenance workers to payroll staffers -- for their efforts through the year.

Want more? Read here:

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=414038

[PB]

We see Rochester's primary colors, shining through

Any voter overwhelmed by the 13 candidates up for Rochester school board last fall has some good news: the school district plans to pass a resolution that would require a primary election.

Last fall, board members Breanna Bly, James Pittenger and Cris Fischer retained their seats, as voters decided between a packed slate of 13 candidates. Rochester schools went without a primary because the deadline to notify the state of plans to hold that election passed June 1. Label it a clerical error by someone in the district, as it turned into a situation where people assumed that other people were handling the matter. In reality, it fell through the cracks (as can happen).

According to a survey by the Minnesota School Boards Association, 18 school districts have chosen to pass a resolution that forces a primary election system. Rochester apparently plans to pass the resolution before June 1, 2010.

According to MSBA, this is about 5 percent of the 340 school districts. MSBA's survey was conducted June 29-July 7. A total of 293 of the 340 school districts responded.

I just spotted this during late Friday duty, more to come soon...

(MSBA) Here's a list of the school districts that have passed a resolution subjecting the district to the state’s primary election system (locals in bold):
Austin
Cambridge-Isanti
Cloquet
Columbia Heights
Cyrus
Dover-Eyota
Duluth
East Central
Farmington
Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop
Hayfield
Little Falls
Northfield
Northland Community Schools
Osakis
RTR
St. Paul
Westonka
White Bear Lake

(Hat tip: Minnesota School Boards Association)