Posted: 7/6/04
Tool led a period of change in school district
Jim Toolís two-year position as interim Caledonia school superintendent ended on June 30. The new superintendent is Michael Moriarty of Brownsville.
Tool, 61, had retired after 18 years as the superintendent of the Delano, Minnesota, school district in 2000 before taking the interim position in Caledonia. He and his wife, Sandra, live in Delano. They have two children, Jenny, 31, Seoul, Korea; and Ryan, 28, Norfolk, Virginia.
Tool talked about why he took the Caledonia job, and about many other things in a June 22 interview with The Argus. It is printed here.
Argus: Why did you take the Caledonia job?
Tool: I did miss the contact with people, and I think I missed the challenge of doing something very complicated.
What challenges did the district face when you started?
We were in statutory operating debt, although the school board had gone through two years of cuts. They actually had us in pretty good shape, although we were not officially out of debt when I came. But it was clear that we needed a levy referendum. Approximately 90 percent of the stateís school districts already had it.
The previous fall that levy referendum was defeated by about 3-1, and it was not for a large amount.
The collective community attitude was pretty negative.
Even though they had passed a building referendum?
But that was in 1999. In 2000 they discovered that they were in statutory operating debt and people were still mad about that. And they werenít giving the school board credit for much of anything. But the school board in a period of two years did turn things around. But it was not well-known that that was going to happen.
All the complications of the building program were still happening. The middle school/high school wasnít finished, although it was well on its way and we did move in that fall at the start of school. This remodeling program here at the old high school was just starting, so all of that was up in the air.
And then there was the newspaper lawsuit. When I first heard about it, I thought the newspaper was wrong to do that. But after I found out the facts of it, it turned out that the newspaper was right.
[Editorís note: The lawsuit filed by The Argus dealt with the board not properly summarizing its evaluation of former superintendent Percy Linger in April of 2002. The Argus won the lawsuit in January of 2003.]
And then there was the problem with the high school, the school board had just declared eminent domain where Esch Drive is, to get a more logical entrance to the high school. I think in the previous 25 years that I was superintendent,ÝI donít remember any lawsuits, then I was stuck into two of them.
[Editorís note: The eminent domain lawsuit was settled by the two parties in the fall of 2002.]
Those were the primary challenges, the credibility of the school board and administration, and statutory operating debt. And in August we ended up with several late resignations, the special education teacher, the band director, a choir director who did not show up.
One other little thing, it was kind of a grind for people that the district office was not located in one of the school buildings. The district office was in the Ace building. I hated that. I had spent my whole career in a school building. I hated being off-site. The citizens didnít like it very well either. The primary reason wasnít trying to get the district office out of the building, it was to create space. We didnít have enough space for ECFE, the early childhood program, so that created some space for them.
What do you feel the district has accomplished in the past two years?
I think we stabilized a lot of the issues that were up in the air at the time, issues like can the school board manage the school district and can the administration take care of the jobs that they are supposed to do. I think we gained back some level of confidence that that all can happen. I think the moves into the new building and into the remodeling building really were accomplished quite well, and itís made a definite improvement to education. It used to be that there would be 10-20 days a year that because of heat and humidity, education did not function very well in the building. People were on a survival mode. And now every day of the school year is a good day in terms of heat and humidity because we do have it controlled. We have a great environment for kids to learn and for teachers to teach.
I think the financial question was stabilized or helped a great deal with the passage of the referendum. But the financial condition of the state of Minnesota is slowly eating away at what was accomplished with the referendum, so weíre going to still have to look at budget reductions for at least the next several years because it looks like the state is going to be in financial trouble for at least the next several years.
With the referendum, we were able to update and improve curriculum materials and staff development. That will help us both in the short term and the long run.
And overall both the staff and the community seem to be quite positive about the school.
Is there anything that can be done to change the declining enrollment trend?
Certainly anything that expands the population of the school district will eventually cause more kids to be going to school. But at the same time, with social trends, family size isnít as big as it used to be.
I still hear comments from people, especially given the declining enrollment, questioning why the new school was necessary. How would you answer that question?
I didnít have the opportunity to experience it first hand, but being in this building before it was remodeled, plus being in the other building, there were a lot of quality issues about how things were handled or not handled in the classroom. There was not enough space to do things the way it would be desired. The technology was not nearly as up to date as it is now and as it should be. And there were those air quality issues that were huge. There were molds that were circulating in the old elementary building. And like I say, there were those periods, probably 10 to 20 days a year, when the temperatures would soar into the high 90s and the humidity would be just huge. Those times were not very good times.
Itís very unusual that a school district this size would not have more of its own athletic facilities. That whole picture changed a lot. Now we can offer a lot to students and to the community in terms of athletic facilities.
And the other thing that I would mention is that although weíre going through a period of decline, I donít think that thatís going to go on indefinitely either. If you look at the statewide school population or go to any individual area, youíll see valleys and peaks in the enrollment. It wasnít that long ago, about five years ago, we saw a real peak in enrollment. and in all reality, Caledonia will eventually become I believe a lot more populated than it is now. The quality of life in Caledonia is extremely high. Once when people have a chance to experience that, and there is more and more pressure on land in other areas, I think a lot of people will want to come here and live here. If more jobs come to areas like La Crosse and Caledonia itself, more people will want to come here and live. So I think itís wrong to assume that whatever is happening to enrollment now is the picture for the future. Looking at the more long term, youíre going to see another rise in the student population, and youíll see a substantial rise in the population of the whole community.
That leads to my last question: Where do you see the district in 10 years?
I would believe in 10 years that the state will have gone through a financial reform that would provide better stability to school districts. I think weíre not at the very low point yet, weíre still going there, but in 10 years things will have changed.
There will be continued emphasis on accountability. Each and every student will be looked at as to are they meeting certain standards, and if not, what are we doing to make sure that they get to those standards. But most quality issues, education will be viewed as being a higher quality. In the near future weíre going to be doing too much testing. Maybe in 10 years weíll be doing hopefully less testing but it will be more effective, more informative.
And Iíd like to believe that 10 years from now, that education will be less of a political football than it is now. Both democrats and republicans want to call themselves the party of education, and yet they havenít done us a lot of good in that whole process.
Anything else you would like to add?
The two years down here has been I believe extremely good for me. Iíve definitely appreciated the warmth and the good feeling that Iíve received from so many of the residents of the Caledonia area. Iíve just enjoyed the opportunity to be here.
Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475
E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com