Action of the School Board Action of the School Board 05/11/15 | Seite 2

investigation, and senior Angie Xiong won first place in nursing assistant and third place in
general safety. Junior Eric Mortenson won second place in criminal justice and senior Kyle
Brotkowski won third place in criminal justice.
Lipa and teacher Robin Bondhus also recognized 11 students who placed in the state
Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) competition in St. Cloud. Junior Griffin
Gartner won first place in prepared speaking, senior Shae Wahl won first place in nursing
assistant, and junior Kiana Palileo and seniors Shelby Pratt and Matalin Rudintski each
finished first in public service announcements. Seniors Matthew Fietek and Devyn Huboda-Laroque finished first in forensic medicine, while senior Matalin Rudintski and junior
Sydney Casey each finished second in forensic medicine. Junior Veronica Manning finished
third in medical spelling and junior Griffin Gartner finished third in pathophysiology.

Champlin Park High School

Champlin Park High School Principal Mike George and activities director Matt Mattson recognized the boy’s basketball team, which finished second in Class AAAA at the
state boy’s basketball tournament. They were: sophomores Theo John, DeAnte’ Bronson,
BJ Smith, Mello Adkins, McKinley Wright, Marcus Hill and Cole Albers; juniors Aaron
Kloeppner, Eldridge Joyce, Abdul Haji, Brennan Kapaun and Max Hals; seniors Marty Hill,
Datrice Mulsumo, Jeremy Johnson, Nick Hayes, Johnathan Johnson, and JT Gibson; student
managers Sam Holte and Destiny Williams; assistant coaches Brian Larson, Kevin Netzer
and Matt Hoelz; and head coach Mark Tuchsherer. George and Mattson also recognized
Tuchsherer for being named the state’s Class AAAA State Coach of the Year by the State
Coaches Association and Gibson for being named the state’s Mr. Basketball.

Blaine High School

Blaine High School Principal John Phelps recognized a number of students from the
school’s speech and debate program. He first recognized seniors Kaylee Berg, Hayley
Pierce-Ramsdell and Ariana Schneiderhan, and juniors Sam Bullard, Harley Pierce-Ramsdell, Griffen Gartner and John Hilst for qualifying for the 2015 National Speech and Debate
Tournament. In addition, Berg finished fourth place in the state speech tournament in the
great speeches category, and Hayley Pierce-Ramsdell finished second at the state tournament in extemporaneous speaking. Senior Michael Jide was recognized for finishing fourth
at state in creative expression.
Phelps also recognized Berg, Schneiderhan and senior Devin Pendergast for being named
National Speech and Debate Association Academic All Americans, meaning they competed
for three years, have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.7 or more, and earned a 27 or better
on the ACT test.

Finance

Legislative update presented

Michelle Vargas, chief financial officer, provided an update on work at the legislature on
school funding for the next biennium.
She outlined three different funding proposals — that of the governor, the House and the
Senate — and how each would result in deficits of varying degrees for Anoka-Hennepin,
ranging from $5 to $8 million by the end of next year and another $14 to $17 million by the
end of the following year. Large spending cuts would be needed to balance the budget.
But since each legislative body has different proposals, Steve Kerr, executive director of
community and governmental relations, said a conference committee would be needed to
hammer out the differences and come up with a final education budget. “We’re waiting for
the conference committee to do their work,” he said.

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ACTION

School Board chair Tom Heidemann noted that there have been a number of different proposals to increase the state funding formula. The current proposals increase the formula by
1 percent. Doubling that to 2 percent would reduce projected deficits to around $2.5 million