The Owatonna school board had its work session on Monday the 14th at the district office. The meeting began with a brief review of the upcoming changes to our Owatonna Education Center, with work beginning in the spring 2027. These needs were initially discussed when I joined the board in 2023 so it is good to see that we can make this work for the benefit of our students, teachers, staff, and still work within the budget. This will allow all of our little huskies (ECFE and preK) to be together in one building with Community Education, while the Area Learning Center students will eventually move to the Roosevelt building on S. Cedar and McKinley. Funding has already been approved. Secondly, the board engaged in continued discussion regarding the board’s self-evaluation, reviewing the vision and updated strategic directions, with a very thorough “scorecard” of our district that will be published on the website when it is finalized. Credit goes to Dr. Champa and our director of Teaching and Learning, Julie Sullivan, for this scorecard and the great detail and helpful information it provides! This discussion led to review of the board’s superintendent evaluation. Overall consensus from the board was recognition of the great work that Dr. Champa has accomplished and continues to do for our district, namely our students, but also our staff and teachers.
The majority of the meeting then was spent in closed session to discuss district safety with board members, superintendent Champa, director of finance Mark Stotts, director of technology and innovation Mike Halvorson, and our new manager of facilities Paul Durbahn (director of facilities Bob Olson retired in June 2026.) Dr. Champa has jumped in full speed to get our district up to date with regard to safety (staff trainings, building safety, technology safety, policies/procedures, etc). Mr. Durbahn also has done much work on this in the short time since he started this role July 1, 2026. The work has been heavy and very involved, much has been accomplished, but the work is ongoing. More info can be found on the district website or questions can be directed to Dr. Champa or Mr. Durbahn. As one of the board members stated in our meeting, this district has never felt more secure and safe.
Just FYI, you may or may not have seen that Owatonna Education Association (OEA) has endorsed four of the eight school board candidates. I have observed that while school board members should not be viewed as political candidates, they are often divided into the two main parties regardless. I have not been endorsed by the OEA, but wanted to give you the questions and my answers to those questions from which they based their endorsements from. I have not used AI in writing this blog or answers to the questions.
Elizabeth for Owatonna Schools 