Even if DEI wasn’t the problem, the board majority still voted to cut teachers and student programs. Why didn’t you push back?

Admittedly, I hadn’t planned on this being the last question. It just so happens that Director Atkinson made the following statements to a district resident while discussing this very issue. What a coincidence!

“Whatever funding our district receives needs to be supporting students learning, not progressive DEI initiatives, like we have seen in the past.”

“While the resolution was removed by the conservative board in 2025, how the budget is created is based on school board budget priorities. When the board’s priorities in 2025 were to keep cuts away from the classroom, the progressive majority voted to cut teachers and student programs. Can you imagine if those board members would have pushed back and said no cuts to teachers and student programs? I often wonder why Olstad, Smith, Frantz and Bullyan did not push back on those cuts including the cut for the high school choir teacher.”

To answer the overall question, I want to give some helpful context around Director Atkinson’s statement. Let’s take it one piece at a time.

“Whatever funding our district receives needs to be supporting students learning, not progressive DEI initiatives, like we have seen in the past. While the resolution was removed by the conservative board in 2025, how the budget is created is based on school board budget priorities.”

As I outlined in a previous question, this work didn’t go away. Our teachers and staff are still assessing what each student needs to do their best. It’s like what I said about planning and strategy. The planning doesn’t go away simply because you stop investing in it. The same holds true here.

Want an example that shows both philosophies at once?

Our district employs cultural liaisons who help families understand how American schools work and fill out paperwork. They interpret conversations between teachers and parents about academics and behavior, and they help staff work effectively with families from other cultures. They help families who speak one of the more than 60 languages in our district register their kids for school, sign up for lunch and transportation, and talk with teachers at conferences. Federal law requires schools to communicate with parents in a language they understand during the special education process.

The supervisor of this work was the director of equity and inclusion. When that role was eliminated at the April 14, 2025 board meeting, the work didn’t magically go away. It was transferred to departments that already had their own core work to do. The cultural liaisons, for example, now report to the director of student support services. Eliminating a role doesn’t eliminate the work. It just adds it to the plates of people who already had full ones.

I’ll apologize if I am cutting Director Atkinson’s victory lap short here. She’s proud the resolution is gone. But I’m confused on exactly which part of what I described is “progressive ideology.” Helping a family register for school? Interpreting at conferences? Following federal law? If that’s the ideology, I’ll plead guilty.

“When the board’s priorities in 2025 were to keep cuts away from the classroom, the progressive majority voted to cut teachers and student programs.”

This may be a minor quibble, but I can’t be the only one who noticed that the “conservative board” who removed the equity and inclusion resolution is the same “progressive majority” that voted to cut teachers and programs, right?

I’d love to know how both of those can be true.

“Can you imagine if those board members would have pushed back and said no cuts to teachers and student programs? I often wonder why Olstad, Smith, Frantz and Bullyan did not push back on those cuts including the cut for the high school choir teacher.”

No, you’re not reading that wrong. Some of this is a tad difficult to follow, but it happens more often than you’d think.

AHEM

I was not on the board in 2025 when those cuts were made.

Have I had to make extremely tough decisions during my time on the board? Unequivocally, yes. I have had to vote to cut teachers and programs. That doesn’t mean I relished it. And voting for a budget doesn’t mean I didn’t ask questions. I did, and the answers held up. I made a hard choice given the circumstances, and it was absolutely awful.

I agree that the budget is based on the board’s priorities. But here’s the fatal flaw in Director Atkinson’s statement. Priorities decide where cuts land. Revenue decides whether they happen at all. The district did prioritize keeping cuts away from classrooms.

In 2024-25, reductions at the District Services Center cut administrative costs.

In 2025-26, the district further reduced staffing and administration, ended the MNCAPS lease and moved the program back to the high school, closed the Twin Oaks pool, eliminated Laker Online, reduced K-1 iPads and staff desktops, and reduced elective options in middle school and high school.

On June 8, 2026, the board approved a final budget that reduced spending by another $4.15 million. Those reductions were necessary because the last levy failed. The vote was 4-3. Director Atkinson voted no.

None of this should come as a surprise. During the 2024 levy campaign, Director Atkinson called the district’s list of what was at stake “fear mongering.” Since then, that list has played out across two budgets with school closures, the Twin Oaks pool, the MNCAPS lease and pathways, larger class sizes, staffing reductions, fewer secondary electives, and reduced student access to educational technology.

Saying no to these cuts doesn’t create money. You can’t put money back into classrooms if it isn’t there, and offering no alternatives doesn’t solve the problem. Believe me, if Director Atkinson had a viable plan for avoiding most of these cuts, or even a fraction of them, I would have listened.

So what was the alternative?

I, along with many (many) others, asked her directly, which specific non-classroom reductions she proposed on the record as an alternative, and in what amounts.

Her answer was that the board is the “what” and the “why,” and administration is the “how.” She said it isn’t the board’s authority to propose specific cuts, because board members don’t have insight into every single role in the district (don’t worry, I’ll get there). Instead, she said she’ll keep advocating for zero-based budgeting.

So I asked how zero-based budgeting differs from what our district already does. She explained that traditional budgeting starts from last year’s spending and adds or cuts, while zero-based budgeting starts from what’s needed this year and justifies each cost.

Here’s my problem. Zero-based budgeting means justifying every role and line item. The district did exactly that, and it produced a $4.15 million reduction. You don’t get to demand a process, watch it happen, vote against the result, and then keep demanding the process.

And if board members don’t have insight into every role, how did she determine the proposed cuts didn’t align with board priorities?

Rather than answer that, she changed the subject to furniture, a point that has come up at the board table for weeks. She said her priorities are “funding classrooms” over “fancy new furniture,” and pointed to my support for recent furniture and office renovation spending. Then she confirmed the district doesn’t use zero-based budgeting, but said she’ll keep encouraging it. Demand the process. Watch it happen. Vote against the result. Keep demanding the process. Rinse and repeat.

Encouraging a framework you can’t explain, for work the district has already done, isn’t a plan.

And while we’re on the subject of “fancy furniture”…

That furniture was paid for from Fund 4, the Community Services Fund. State law restricts those dollars to community education and early childhood programs. They cannot pay a teacher or lower a class size. “Classrooms versus fancy furniture” was never a real choice, and every board member receives the financial reports that show it.

It also wasn’t fancy office furniture. It was a waiting room at Edgewood for our preschool and early childhood (ECFE) families. Before that, families sat in a hallway while their child was assessed, or while staff talked with them about their child’s needs. Those are private conversations. Families deserve better than a hallway.

I supported that expenditure, and I’d support it again. We can agree to disagree on priorities. We cannot disagree on which fund pays for what. That’s a fact, not a perspective.

Director Atkinson says classrooms come first. Well let’s just take a look at the ol’ voting record, shall we?

On March 9, 2026, the board voted on the district’s Achievement and Integration plan to strengthen evidence-based reading instruction for K-3 students in every elementary school. That’s teachers, in classrooms, teaching kids to read during the years that matter most. I voted for it. Director Atkinson voted against it.

On June 8, 2026, the board voted on a budget that kept the district solvent. She voted no.

She voted against closing WestWood as a neighborhood school. She voted against a levy amount that would actually prevent more cuts.

That isn’t a record of putting classrooms first. It’s a record of voting no and calling it a priority.

Voting no is easy. Balancing a budget when the money isn’t there is hard, and it’s the job. I voted the way I did so the district could remain solvent.

Passing the levy means the next difficult votes are about where we can invest, not where we have to cut.