By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
After hearing extensive public feedback throughout February and March, the Northfield School Board began its discussion of the $6 million in proposed budget reductions at its regular meeting on Monday night. The board began the discussion by reviewing each individual package of recommendations, asking questions, and requesting additional information to be presented at the work session meeting scheduled for next week.
Among the main topics the board discussed was elementary class sizes. When asked how the class sizes were determined, Director of Finance Val Mertesdorf explained how the Budget Prioritization Committee decided their goal:
“And then from what I recall, they had like four options. That said, if we did this class size target, here are the other things that would have to be reduced, and then they had the team vote on their top 2 preferences, and this is what was recommended by the group.” – Val Mertesdorf, Northfield School Director of Finance at the 4/14/2025 School Board Meeting
Learn more:
- An In-Depth Look At the Northfield Public Schools Budget Reductions (podcast)
- With the Northfield Schools Budget Cuts, Why is the District Continuing High School Construction Project? (article)
- What Happens To The Ice Arena Agreement With the School District Budget Reductions? (article)
- A summary of the Public Forum (podcast)
Another major topic was the proposed schedule change to Middle School, from 7 hours to 6 hours. Among the impacts would be a reduction in choice for students. When asked by the board how students would continue to meet art requirements, Director of Instructional Services Hope Langston stated that they would work to bundle requirements together:
“So that’s part of the curricular work that we do to take a look at all the standards, because if you put them all together, it would be really hard to teach all of them in every content area in a single school year. So you bundle those together. We actually do a cross-curricular approach early as well. That’s why we looked at what dance is being done in music, what dance is being done in PE. To see if we can bundle standards together in that way as well.” – Hope Langston, Northfield School Director of Instructional Services at the 4/14/2025 School Board Meeting
Langston stated that other districts are “finding a way,” specifically using the quarter class system to meet all the different requirements.
One change made in response to public feedback was the number of school nurses. Originally, the proposal was to reduce the number of licensed school nurses from 6 to 3, and replace them with unlicensed but trained health aides. After much public comment on the item, an alternative was brought forward to reduce the coordinator position among the nurses and retain a school nurse at each building. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said that this was the previous system the district operated with
“But it solves the issue of people who have had a concern about not having a licensed person in each building. But we go from 7 FTE, if you will, in that department to 6 FTE.” – Dr Matt Hillmann, Superintendent of Schools at the 4/14/2025 School Board Meeting
Of course, there were more topics discussed on Monday. Click on the video too see all the topics discussed:
School Board Chair Claudia Gonzalez-George addressed the difficult process for the schools:
“And we don’t disagree as board members as community members. As parents, we don’t disagree with your concerns. It’s a $6 million loss for all of us.” – Claudia Gonzalez-George, Northfield School Board Chair at the 4/14/2025 School Board Meeting
Coming up, the School Board will meet again on Tuesday for a work session meeting at 5pm. At the work session no votes will be taken, also no public comment will be taken either, the format of the meeting means that their will also be no recording of the meeting. KYMN News will be at the meeting and have a report for everyone in the news.
After that the School Board will meet again for a regular meeting on Monday, April 28th for a vote on the final budget. Hillmann described the process of how the budget would be approved:
“We’ll bring forward the activities package, and we’ll ask if there are any board members who would like to remove any line item from the activities package. Any board member can remove any line item. So, if you say I want to remove line item 22, that line item comes off once board members have said all of the line items that they would like to remove it. Then we approve the remainder of that package, except for the line items that you’ve removed. Then we go line item by line item, and you discuss that particular recommendation, and you either approve it or you don’t approve it? “ – Dr Matt Hillmann, Superintendent of Schools at the 4/14/2025 School Board Meeting
Will keep you posted with details about this going forward.
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