Karger prompts board to prepare for his replacement

By Robert Williams

Editor

Stellher Mental Health Therapist at the high school Hailey Brower gave a report to the school board Monday that included two new providers at the elementary school and a service breakdown of students receiving mental health assistance.

There are 63 students currently being served with eight more on a waiting list, 34 at the elementary and 27 at the high school with two referrals out—awaiting completion of paperwork to begin receiving services.

Seniors and the sixth grade class are always groups to watch as they will be transferring schools and graduating. This year there are five sixth graders that may move up to Brower’s case load at the high school in 2026-27. There are four seniors who will be graduating and leaving the case load.

“Sometimes it fluctuates,” Brower said. “Once they get up here they do really well and they don’t need to continue services. Sometimes, once other sixth graders get up here there are lots of concerns and they need to be added to my case load.”

Grade level/Number of students

K / 3

1 / 4

2 / 8

3 / 6

4 / 5

5 / 3

6 / 5

7 / 6

8 / 4

9 / 4

10 / 6 

11 / 3

12 / 4

Brower also discussed an increase in high school students hospitalized this year. There have been 10 hospitalizations since September, four in November alone. In 2024-25, there were five during the entire school year.

“That’s a significant increase that in just the high school is taking up a lot of time between myself and Marty, as well,” said Brower. “A lot of time in mental health is kind of spent in crisis this year. Which is not something we have always had our time focused on or needed. This year this seems to be more of a concern.”

Brower also provided a diagnostic breakdown with general anxiety being the most prevalent condition at 39.4 percent of students. Last year, the most common was PTSD, which is third-highest this school year at 14.1 percent behind Other Reactions at 19.7 percent.Other reactions is a combination of diagnoses, meaning one or more of the symptoms.

Pathways

Instructors Marty Thorp, Roger Thorp and Jim Rader reported on the Pathways program at the high school. 

Marty Thorp spoke about the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program with Frazee Care Center and receiving positive feedback from the students involved and the Care Center.

The Care Center has suggested a potential expansion of the program by offering a Training Medical Aid (TMA) position that would be a next step after completing the CNA course.

The Hornet Zone and Career Seminar classes are transitioning to Career Seminar I and II for the 2026-27 school year. 

“This is going to allow us to provide a sequence of courses leading to work-based learning at the high school,” said Thorp.

Roger Thorp is working with M-State to get an articulation agreement passed—mainly working with a college professor to align the Career Seminar syllabi so that the seminar classes count as a college credit. Students have to go to M State to activate the credit, but if a student completes an Associates degree and transfers to another college that credit transfers with them. Seminar I is a one-credit course and Seminar II is a three-credit course.

Seminar II, which was the Hornet Zone, will not see much change in content. It is being rebranded to “run it through the state,” according to Thorp.

Rader spoke about a visit to the school board last year in which the program was discussed with the priority of giving students opportunities to pursue career pathways.

“A couple of our goals within that whole process is for students to be able to earn some industry-recognized credentials, like the CNA course Marty talked about earlier,” Rader said. “And opportunities to earn college credits if that’s the pathway they choose to go down. Articulated classes like Roger just talked about.”

Rader has been looking at the Youth Skills Training (YST) program.

“The goal of that program is to get young people exposure to high-demand occupations that can be found right here in Minnesota,” said Rader.

While the program has many different elements, Rader singled out establishing partnerships with local industries that fall within certain pathways. 

Rader has worked with four different area employers that were approved by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to be YST-approved employers. Daggett Truck Line and Frazee Care Center are two of those businesses. 

BTD Manufacturing in Detroit Lakes and KLN Family Brands in Perham are also approved and have signed on to partner with the program.

“Which opens up the door for future opportunities for us to place students with these businesses doing things that they otherwise may not be allowed to do,” said Rader.

There are existing limitations that employees under the age of 18 have to work under.

“With the YST program you get some flexibility with that,” said Rader.

An example Rader gave was students having access to welding or even robotic welding. 

“We could potentially get a junior placed over there at the age of 16 or 17 gaining some real life work experience, earning some money, as well, and getting themselves prepared for a high end job in the future,” Rader said.

The same situation exists at the other three businesses.

“The Care Center has been a huge asset because the biggest pathway we’ve been working on recently is the healthcare one,” said Rader.

One of Rader’s goals for the coming year is to find an additional healthcare provider, perhaps Ecumen or Perham Health.

A grant application has been completed with the help of District Business Manager Chrissy Clapsaddle to the Department of Labor and Industry to hopefully help fund the Pathways program into the future.

“I feel pretty good about the application we submitted; I’m hopeful we get the dollar amount that we requested to help pay for taking students on field trips to places like BTD, Brunswick in New York Mills, KLN or to college career fairs so they can get some additional exposure to various career opportunities that are out there,” said Rader.

The Care Center has been covering the costs of the student training and Rader is hoping the grant will allow the school to cover those costs.

The Care Center course is the equivalent of about one hour per day per semester.

Elementary

Principal Travis Nagel reported ongoing reading assessments or the Comprehensive Achievement and Civic Readiness Elementary Academic percentage for the fall was 73 percent, as it was for the winter session.

“We’d like to see that number increase as we go; we’re still very close to where we want to be,” Nagel said.

The program goal is that by the conclusion of this school year, a minimum of 80 percent of third-grade students will attain scores at or above the 30th percentile on the local reading assessment, thereby demonstrating performance at or above grade level.

“We’re going to keep working to get to that 80 percent and I’m pretty confident we will,” said Nagel.

High School

The high school has a similar assessment for students enrolled in Intermediate Algebra, English 1 and Biology with a goal of 80 percent of students achieving semester grades of 70 percent or higher demonstrating proficiency in state standards and essential learner outcomes.

Students in the assessment scored 90 percent or higher in all three.

“The numbers we saw pulled out speak to exactly the reasons that we went to looking at our data this way,” said Principal Jason Smith. “This is what our people are doing here. This is the  impact our people are having here. This sheds away the kids’ individual plans; this sheds away the kids that are in and out, or not here. We are teaching the kids that are here and we’re seeing every one of these targets are met…for English 9, and Math 9 and Biology 10 we’re hitting our marks. It looks really, really good. I’m super excited to share this with staff when I talk to them tomorrow.”

Admin

Superintendent Terry Karger has begun planning with the school board on creating a pool of candidates to replace him. Karger plans to submit his official resignation late next fall.

“Next year at this time we should be interviewing,” Karger said.

Karger used an existing superintendent opening info sheet from Pillager Public School District through the Minnesota School Boards Association.

“I encourage you not to wait—make sure we’re one of the ones out there earlier than later to make sure we get the best pool possible for the future of our district,” said Karger.

CTE

Karger cited the CTE program of West Central Area schools and how it has gone from a dead program with little interest from students to doubling CTE staff and becoming a successful school program through community involvement and grant funding.

A greenhouse program was started and continued with the Lions International Hunger Grant to teach plant science and reduce hunger locally.

“Today, that greenhouse they have produces 72 heads of lettuce per week; most of that is going to food banks, food shelves, food pantries,” said Karger.

The $100,000 Lions grant was a full match. The first $1,000 was donated by a young, local farmer and $55,000 was raised through other grants and donations in a few months.

The program now has a vineyard, an apple orchard, a corn plot, grow towers at their elementary school and a GroShed.

They are also utilizing the YST grant and moving on to community contributions through the healthcare services and automotive businesses in their respective communities.

“You need partnerships; you need to have your CTE be something that your kids give tours to,” said Karger. “Have groups come in. They invite legislators to come in and they tour the facility. They’re big on getting people in, showcasing their kids and their facility and in turn, finding more people willing to donate.”

Enrollment

The district received the enrollment options applications for enrollment out of the District to: Detroit Lakes (4), Pelican Rapids (2) and into District: (5) from Detroit Lakes.

Actual enrollment at the elementary school is 410 students in February, down one from last month and five from the high in November (415). The elementary school began the school year with 407 students.

The high school enrollment is at 399 students, two more than December and January. September was the yearly low with 392 to start the school year.

Hornet Pride

The following monetary donations were approved:

• Nicole/Nick Courneya- $250 donation to the weight room

• Jason Bauer- $100 donation to the weight room

• James/Jill Rader- $100 donation to the weight room

• CornerStone Youth Center- $300 donation to the choir department

• Bell State Bank – $35 Custom Card Donation

Prom

A Prom fundraiser was approved. The Prom Committee will conduct a Valentine’s Flower Gram Fundraiser. Funds raised will be used to support prom-related expenses.

Staffing

The following headcount changes were approved:

• Resignation/retirement from Custodian Charles Rohloff, effective, Feb. 15.

• Hiring a Paraeducator Reese Hanson.

The next school board meeting will be held Monday, March 9, at 6 p.m., in the High School Media Center.