001Let me go to my first page. The Thursday, May 7th, 2026, Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education special meeting is called to order at 5.30 p.m. Tonight we are meeting at the district office. As a reminder, there's no public comment during special school board meetings. When this meeting is being recorded, an access to the recording will be made available on the district's website as quickly as possible. Our school district's mission is to inspire, innovate, excel, a community commitment. Board Member Pearson is absent this evening. Board Clerk Dukes, will you please take roll call? Yeah. Member Nehemia? Si. Aye. Member Klinger? Present. Member Lonsberry? Here. Member Warren? Here. Member Dukes is here. Member Larson? Here. All right. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
002of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do I have a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda items? Motion by Member Fender. Second by Member Dukes. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. We will begin with information item. The topic is discussion of options for appointing an interim superintendent. The purpose of this special meeting is for the school board to discuss options for appointing an interim superintendent for a one-year term. An interim superintendent is a qualified leader appointed by a school board to lead a school district on a temporary basis. An interim superintendent holds the same power, authority, and responsibilities as a permanent superintendent. Searching for an interim superintendent is often quite different from a
003traditional superintendent search. As we look at the transition ahead, we have two distinct options for securing an interim superintendent. We'll read option number one is an internal interim superintendent contract. The first option is for the board to enter into contract negotiations regarding our current internal superintendent, Dave Bernardson, for a one-year term beginning on July 1, 2026 and ending on June 30, 2027. This would involve arriving at a mutually agreed upon contract between Superintendent Bernardson and the school board for a one-year term that would require ratification by the superintendent and approval by the school board. At this time, I'll open up discussion to board members for any questions or comments on option one. I'd be in favor of this option. First of all, gratitude to Mr. Bernson that he would be willing to do this again.
004We have checked with him, of course. He'd be willing to do this again, check with his family. I know they have a lot going on with their families, but he is willing, and I think it would just be the right fit to keep going with the same person, especially if we're going to try and pass a levy coming up. I think that there's a lot of reasons. I think, why wouldn't we stay with our same superintendent? Any other discussion? Just to be clear, and Carrie, I appreciate, or Madam Chair, I appreciate your messages to us about this, just to kind of keep us sort of up to date on what's happening. I would say my only other question is, do we know there is no other internal candidate, right? We don't have anyone else licensed
005for this internally. And then I almost, to me, not talking about the second option with this. If you would read the second option, I think it would be worth discussing both together. I don't know what anybody else's thoughts are. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I just was curious if there's any other initial thoughts to option one. Okay. My thought with option one is I feel like we stopped the search to do internal board work, and this feels... in my opinion, the cleanest option to get to that work. Just continuing on and then being able to focus on board roles and responsibilities and clarifying over doing another search for one year. So that would just be my feelings on option one. I will read option two, an external interim superintendent search. The second option is for the board
006to partner with a group such as MSBA to conduct an external interim superintendent search. The search would require the board to follow applicable requirements for an interim superintendent search, which would include other logistics and a timeline to follow. At this time, I'll open up discussion to board members for any questions or comments on option two or option one. I think it's important to read this one in context of the first one because I think it's what to your point I think you're right there's a lot of work we need to do as a board when we're talking about we want to have confidence in the process and we want to have confidence in the outcome is what we've said right and I if the other question I had is how long of a term like
007is a year the automatic option here It feels like that's the right thing to do. It feels like we have a lot to do. We do have other things to focus on too, but it is also, normally we have work sessions where we're coming in more together. And like today, this is our first time to even talk about this as a group because we're just... We're adhering to open meeting law extremely stringently, and yet we're not collaborating because we need work sessions. I think we need a lot of work sessions. And I don't know if we're ready to use another... And I'm not necessarily against looking at other search firms. I would be open to that discussion. Though I don't know if the work isn't really more with us than a search firm. I'm not
008sure. I mean, I'm open to a lot of ideas, but it seems like a lot of... We need the time before we do a search for anything necessarily. Are you questioning if a year interim position would be enough time or if that's too much time? No, I think that was my thought of like how long do we need originally. I was just toying in my head. Do we need three months, six months a year, month to month? You can do a lot of different options. And then like what's appealing to an interim? is a month to month is probably not that appealing so I get that and I don't know if a timeline a harsh timeline is a great idea so I I'm just I guess I'm just talking about it so we're because we
009have not talked about it I think a year is probably the right thing and if if we ended up going with Dave I think he would be interested in talking to us if we felt differently, we have something in our clause in our contract right now, if the parties mutually agree that they're done early, we could do that. And if he needed to leave or do whatever he needed to do, I'm sure we could work with him. So, I don't know, I was just, those were some of the things I was thinking about when I thought about this. Yeah, I think a month-to-month would be not really appealing to anybody. And that's just typically not... very common. I think the one-year interim would give us stability to you know continue on with traditional business of
010the school district and also time to to really dig in and discuss and discuss. consensus and harder decisions and how do we want the school board in Invergrove Heights to operate. So I think the options, as simply stated, do we want to go into a search, which has time, and it's May. 7th? Yeah, May 7th. And his contract is, I mean, the superintendent's contract is up June 30th. So that's six weeks. To do all of that, and to do it, you know, with fidelity and all of that, I, just for one year, you know, and I think an interim also attracts. different types of candidates, right? It would attract someone who's basically interested in basically using it as like a job interview who would then want to apply for another position or for the for
011the the full position and so then it would be When the search does happen for the next superintendent, I think that search would be pretty small if we chose an interim superintendent who was at the start of his or her career. Or it would be a retired superintendent who would be open to coming in. And then we'd need to decide. MSBA obviously offers that service. Obviously. mixed feelings with how our previous search went. Do we do MSBA? Do we look into somebody else? Any thoughts? Do we want to share like what our inclinations are or how do we want to? Sure. I'm in favor of option one. I am in favor of option one. Yeah, option one makes the most sense for me for the students. why give them someone who's not here full time?
012They need stability. The school needs a leader, not on an hourly basis. I know there's a lot of conversation about us, and frankly, I think we're the least important group of people to be considering when we're talking about finding a superintendent. The students need a leader. Staff need a leader at the front. And so I'd rather continue on with the leader they have. And, you know, the next seven will pick up the reins and find the next superintendent. I think on top of all that, there's three board seats up for reelection this year, so the faces at this table could potentially look different. So having new board members and, if we go option two, a new superintendent, you know, halfway through their year, also trying to figure things out, could make the search for the
013permanent position. Just extra layers, not impossible, but extra layers of things. I would be in favor of option one. Me too. I just wanted to talk about the timing and the why and some of the, especially the timing, because I know, I just know that it's going to be. Work and I think it makes sense. Yes. So we can start all of the process Jan you've been talking about it at least January but that meeting Ahead of time to set the timeline and do all those things so it was three plus months a lot of extra time so I think that That year gives us six months To do the work that we need to do and then and then start that process again Okay, any further discussion? Alright, moving on to action items. Determination
014of the favored option of the interim superintendent search. Moving on to our action items, I will ask the board to share their favored option. It was a logical fall. Yep. Do I have a motion and a second to pursue option one? Motion by member Larson. Second by member Warwick. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. Now we will have a conversation with Superintendent Bernardson about the potential of a one-year contract. Any settlement will be presented at a future board meeting for official ratification. The next work session will be held on Monday, May 11th at 5.30 p.m. And the next regular meeting will be held on Monday, May 18th at 5.30 p.m., both here in the district office. Do I have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting? So moved.
015All right, second by Member Lonsberry. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion is carried at 5.45 p.m.