In just two weeks, the Robbinsdale School Board will have to decide which two elementary schools in the district will close. The closing was made necessary due to the district’s Statutory Operating Debt (SOD) plan with the state, required by the Department of Education because of Robbinsdale’s significant financial troubles. In addition to the elementary schools, the district has already determined that Robbinsdale Middle will likely close.
But the December 15 decision deadline is approaching quickly, and it appears that the board is in trouble. A meeting earlier this week saw public comments full of questions, pleas, and criticisms for a board that has been wracked with controversy.
Why the need for school closures?
In November 2024, two weeks after taxpayers approved a $70 million referendum, the district announced that it was facing a $20 million budget shortfall stemming from a simple accounting error where funds were erroneously counted twice. The timing of the shortfall meant that the 25-26 operating budget would have to be cut to make up the gap.
At the time, Chief Financial Officer Kristen Hoheisel explained why the shortfall wasn’t made public knowledge before the referendum. From MPR:
Hoheisel started at the school district in August. She told town hall attendees she first noticed something was wrong in September, but didn’t feel confident going public with the numbers until they had more information. The public was made aware of the error at a school board meeting Monday, a little less than two weeks after voters passed a referendum that increased funding to the school district.
“So it was almost immediate, after the start of school, where it… it doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t feel right. We knew there was an issue,” she said. “We knew it was probably pretty large. It’s just really hard when you’re still deep diving to go out and say we’re deep diving.”
80 percent of the district’s $200 million budget was allocated towards staff costs, meaning that layoffs were in the future.
Those staff layoffs were announced in March 2025. 200 staff members were cut, 140 of whom were teachers. Officials estimated that the cuts would lead to $15-17 million dollars of savings.
This still left a large budget gap. In a district that has been steadily losing students, consolidating classrooms by closing select schools was the next logical choice to shore up Robbinsdale’s losses.
The Robbinsdale fiasco is much bigger than a tale of an accounting mistake and a mournful district’s response. The Robbinsdale community has been plagued for years by staff turnover, public controversy, and unacceptable board conduct.
The board’s lawyer Jim Martin noted last August that “I have to say, regrettably, this is the most dysfunctional board with whom I’ve ever worked in 30, 31 years.”
The district has struggled with consistent leadership turnover.
Superintendent David Engstrom resigned in 2023 following several weeks of medical leave. After some time under interim superintendent Marti Voight, Dr. Teri Staloch was appointed as the new Robbinsdale superintendent in a 7-0 school board vote — one of the rarer moments of unity for the Robbinsdale school board. She began in July 2024 with a $255,000 salary, just a month before Chief Financial Officer Hoheisel began her position.
Yet, relationships between board members had deteriorated long before Staloch took the helm.
In 2023, the board member chair position changed hands three times in a single year, with some chairs expressing surprise at being voted out. At the time, there was suspicion that some of the board’s actions violated open meeting laws. Board members accused one another of dysfunctional behavior.
Eventually, Red Cedar Consultants were brought into the picture. In August 2024, Red Cedar Consultants presented their findings at a board meeting. The firm was hired to look into what it called “allegations of misconduct between board members,” which dated back to the beginning of the year. From KSTP 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS:
According to the consulting firm and laid out in the report — which, when requested from the district, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was told it was not available as work to redact certain information was not complete — the claims and complaints involved meetings being recorded without all parties being aware and offensive and disparaging comments.
It also included what the consulting firm called “nasty emails” that were “sarcastic and very antagonistic.”
“All school board members, with the possible exception of director [Dr. Greta] Evans-Becker, have contributed to this dysfunction in their behavior toward one another,” Isaac Kaufman, with Red Cedar Consulting, said to the board.
One major point of contention was school board member Director Caroline Long’s race.
Continuing from KSTP 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS:
“I feel like race has been weaponized,” Long said during the discussion. “I feel like, especially towards me, there’s been a lot of colorism that has happened on this board, where people are constantly, other Black women, are constantly denying that I am a Black woman,” Director Long added.
Director Sharon Brooks later responded about an interaction with Long.
“I called her a white woman before, and she corrected me and said, ‘I identify as Black,’” Brooks said.
Director Sharon Brooks, who is also Black, was eventually censured for her questioning of Long’s race. A few months later, the board voted to censure her a second time and cut her stipend. According to the censure, in a December 2, 2024 work session, Brooks
Brooks “engaged in conduct that a reasonable person could find to be retaliatory.”…Brooks “claimed that Director Long’s allegations were ‘cloaked in a lie by someone who said publicly she identifies as Black.’”
Brooks allegedly stated “Colorism is real but it’s much more harsh,” and “I’ll show you some Black harassment,” during the work session.
After the second censure, Brooks was removed from her committee assignments.
In December, Brooks submitted a letter to the Sun Post detailing the budgetary shortfall and the chaotic working conditions on the board. The board found the letter to be retaliatory and demeaning to Director Long and to former board member John Vento, who Brooks considered responsible for the $20 million shortfall.
They planned to censure her for a third time in a February 3, 2025 meeting, but Brooks submitted her resignation just minutes before the meeting began.
Today, Brooks is suing the school board. She has brought forth claims of racism, defamation, and abuse of power, and is seeking $5 million and a public apology. Among other requests, she asked that the board change their legal representation and that the NAACP be allowed to represent those in good membership standing with the NAACP.
In October 2025, board member Kim Holmes also resigned her post. In a social media post, she noted that she filed a complaint with the superintendent about an “act of intimidation” she witnessed in September, but that she would not be discussing details publicly because of her fears of retaliation. In her post, Holmes wrote:
I can no longer subject my family or myself to the traumatic environment of serving as a 281 board member. The toll this has taken on my family and me is beyond what most people could imagine. As stated in my formal resignation statement, this has become a matter of professional and personal conscience as well as ethical standards.
After Holmes’ resignation, KSTP 5 INVESTIGATES noted that their request for interviews with Superintendent Staloch had been denied numerous times.
What happens next?
As might be expected, parents and community members have expressed significant concern, especially with school closings looming. While several noted the deep love they have for the district, many parents who commented at a recent board meeting warned of an erosion of trust between district leadership and parents.
There is now a petition circulating that asks district leaders to delay the SOD decision deadline by 90 days. The petition states in part:
Our district’s administration has opted to invest time in fostering what feels like an illusion of community engagement, creating the Vision Team 2030, and allowing them nine months to produce recommendations devoid of concrete solutions.
Adding to the confusion, the administration’s vague notion of the “Reimagine Rdale” initiative has left many RDale community members bewildered and divided. It’s an inopportune time for ambiguity when clarity and decisive action are required. Our community deserves a chance to explore all viable solutions thoroughly, lest we rush into decisions that we might regret.
The Robbinsdale community has two more opportunities to share their thoughts with the school board before the school closures are decided.
Robbinsdale served 10,810 students in 2025, all of whom need a quality education. It’s clear that the Robbinsdale community will need to take strong action in order to steer their school district well.
Academically, Robbinsdale has not flourished of late. Only about one in four Robbinsdale students have been proficient in math since 2021. (In 2025, 26.1 percent of students were proficient in math.) In reading, the numbers are slightly higher. About two in five Robbinsdale students have been proficient in reading since 2021. (In 2025, 41.2 percent of students were proficient in reading.)
Hopefully, if Robbinsdale sees a strong community effort and a deeply rehabilitated school board, the district will be able to turn those academic numbers around in the years to come.
