Lee Says Sartell Schools Have Strong Team Despite Challenges

SARTELL (WJON News) -- Tom Lee's tenure as Interim Superintendent with Sartell-St. Stephen Schools ends on Friday. Lee says there were a lot of ups and downs over the past year but he is proud of the work the school district did including ensuring middle school students will be maximizing learning time, and publishing curriculum guides so everyone can see what they are working on.

He says there are some items he wishes they would have gotten done too:

"Clearly, Riverview is a project that needs to be dealt with. The school board has received tons of emails saying take care of Riverview but because of the mix of the board they're going to go to a community election."

Lee says because of the election for Riverview the earliest they can start is the summer of 2026. He also says he hopes the board can approve the 22 open contracts at Friday's special meeting, and the vetting of 1,100 books was particularly difficult but some improvements came about because of it:

"We also gave parents the option at the very beginning of the school year to see everything that their child is checking out, by the way we also have that option on our app all year long as well."

Overall, Lee says the district has a strong team despite some mistakes:

"I think that the work we are doing in Sartell-St. Stephen is the right work. I do think mistakes have been made specifically regarding the equity audit but that doesn't necessarily mean we don't have work in that area."

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He says he has no big plans other than going on a couple of trips and then going straight into retirement and staying there. Michael Rivard takes over as the permanent superintendent on Monday.

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