North Dakota
Chuck Haga: Tough decisions loom for school officials in Grand Forks
A friend discovered some old scrapbooks recently, the pages filled with yellowed clippings of newspaper stories from 40 to 50 years ago – Herald stories about Grand Forks County Commission proceedings, mostly.
Some of the stories carry my byline.
I wish I could go back in time with a sharp No. 2 lead pencil and edit those stories – tighten them mostly, and eliminate some of the government jargon.
But one of the clips, a column that ran in 1985, reads pretty well today, I thought. It’s about teachers and schools, budgets and priorities, and when I finished reading I smiled and said, “Yeah!”
I don’t envy members of the Grand Forks School Board, facing a budget deficit today that apparently will require tough decisions. Who goes? What gets cut?
At the newspapers where I’ve worked, I never could understand why some of the best journalists wanted to trade the reporter’s pen for a manager’s responsibilities. Sure, the pay was modestly better, and you might get to shape the overall mission and quality of the paper. You wouldn’t get calls at midnight with orders to race off somewhere to cover a tornado or school shooting.
But as a manager, you might get handed a list of names, including names of friends, and told to decide where to cut. Move the scene from a newsroom to an elected public body and those decisions must be made – should be made – in the glare of public scrutiny, with that splintered public demanding competing solutions.
Grand Forks school administrators say the district must cut the equivalent of about 50 full-time staff positions to deal with a coming budget deficit. Some cuts under discussion would involve teachers, including music educators,
the Herald’s Joshua Irvine reported last Saturday
. The contemplated music cuts, especially, rankled many in the community,
and scores of people – including students – registered their dismay
at a Feb. 26 board meeting. They also objected to the “surprise” disclosure of tentative plans.
As I said, I don’t envy school officials the decisions they’ll have to make. I don’t know enough to offer alternatives. Nor do I care to join in the blame game regarding past decisions (or indecision).
But like most of you, I care about our schools and their mission, feelings I expressed in that column that ran in the Herald on Oct. 17, 1985, as more than 3,000 teachers converged in Grand Forks for a state conference.
“These must be confusing times for teachers,” I wrote back then. “They hear us demanding accountability, professionalism, high competence in their fields and deep caring for our children. But they wonder how much we truly value them when they look at their paychecks.
“They hear many of us preaching that traditional values must be nurtured, or at least not undermined, in the classroom. But they know that tolerance of diversity and respect for law are two of our most fundamental values.”
The teachers in town that week hadn’t asked me how I thought they should go about their jobs, but I told them anyway “because I had teachers who encouraged me to speak up.”
I spoke up then for reading and writing, for history and geography and music and art.
“The ability to read and write is fundamental to citizenship in a democracy. It should be taught in every class. In years to come, I want to be governed by a majority that has read and understood ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ ‘1984’ – and the U.S. Constitution.
“I want neighbors (in 20 years) who understand why ugly, offensive speech must be protected … why people must be presumed innocent until they are proven guilty by due process of law.
“Teachers are right to encourage creative self-expression. It is a vital part of communication. So is the punch of irony and the poetry of allusion. But we also need the common ground of standardized spelling, grammar and syntax if we are to understand each other.”
I was speaking to taxpayers as much as I was to superintendents, school board members and teachers. Don’t slash budgets, pile on extra duties and then complain that the kids aren’t learning.
“Long before they receive a diploma, students should be able to locate (Russia) on a map,” I wrote. “It’s important that they know where Israel is – and how it came to be. … They need to understand why the people of Central America envy, fear and distrust us. They ought to appreciate the awful consequence of drought, famine and war in Africa – and want to do something about it.
“They need to learn that their nation has made mistakes – and that it will do wrong again, in their name. (They must not) equate criticism with disloyalty. They should know Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King – and their words. But teach them, too, not to be so cynical that they can’t see and value the good in their country.
“Teach them that two plus two are four and the capital of Uruguay is Montevideo, but remember that at bottom you are encouraging them to think and feel, weigh and judge, see and hear and do, reach and touch and be touched.”
Then as now, I felt a violin concerto had as much to teach us as a chemical equation, a hockey program or principles of accounting.
Chuck Haga had a long career at the Grand Forks Herald and the Minneapolis Star Tribune before retiring in 2013. He can be contacted at crhaga@gmail.com.
Minnetonka (Minn.) quarterback Caden Gutzmer committed to North Dakota earlier this month.
Gutzmer, a higher three-star on Rivals and the Rivals Industry Ranking, is a significant addition for the Fighting Hawks and chose them over the presence of several other offers. Head coach Eric Schmidt and his staff had much to do with that.
“There are many reasons,” he said. “First being the entire coaching staff is very welcoming, and experienced. And with Coach Schmidt leading the way, the culture there is awesome. I have been to a lot of schools, but based on what I saw with UND, they are building a championship winning team in a strong Missouri Valley Conference. And lastly, the most important thing for me is having an opportunity to play. They really believe in developing players from high school. Could I possibly go to a bigger program, yes. But I don’t want to chase a logo to sit behind kids coming from the portal, you need to opportunity to prove it.”
Gutzmer knows that based on how UND recruits and develops though, that he will have healthy competition within his position group when he gets there.
“We went into depth about the quarterback room and plan,” he said. “Obviously I need to prove myself — everything is earned, and they have a strong quarterback room.”
With his recruitment now behind him, Gutzmer is working towards the ultimate goal for his senior season.
“The biggest focus for me this offseason is to continue to work on my speed and agility, and of course working with my QB coach on everything both physical and mental,” he said. “And get reps with my teammates. Two big goals for the season: stay healthy and win a 6A state championship.”
Gutzmer is ranked by Rivals as the No. 8 junior in Minnesota.
As a junior, he passed for 1,147 yards on 65-of-103 passing for ten touchdowns and zero interceptions.
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) — North Dakota oil shipped on the Dakota Access Pipeline is fetching nearly $7 more per barrel than a U.S. benchmark price amid volatility caused by the Iran war.
State regulators aren’t sure why prices for North Dakota oil at its destination in Illinois are higher than traditional benchmark prices. One possibility is the light, sweet crude can be more easily refined into products like jet fuel and diesel that are experiencing demand surges in Europe and elsewhere.
How much of that higher price benefits North Dakota will be more clear in the coming months, said Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority.
“Royalty owners, the producers, the state, all share that uplift,” Kringstad said.
North Dakota crude oil typically is discounted compared to benchmark pricing to account for the cost of transportation. Kringstad and Nathan Anderson, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, expect to have more information next month about why the prices have been higher in recent weeks and how much of that value is filtering back to North Dakota.
“I would suspect that some portion of it, probably not all of it for sure, does make its way back,” Anderson said.
The new dynamic is a small part of a global oil market that has been thrown into chaos by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime bottleneck for a fifth of the world’s oil production.
“Boy, this is largely dominated by the word volatility. That’s the way I would describe pricing over the last 50 days,” Anderson said. “But over the last seven days, I think we’ve had almost a $20 swing in price, depending upon what talks are occurring between the United States and Iran.”
That chaotic market dynamic and the uncertainty of how long the conflict, and subsequently high oil prices, will endure is a big reason why publicly-traded oil companies have not invested in new drilling, Anderson said.
But the number of maintenance rigs has risen from 110 to 125 since last month, suggesting that oil companies are trying to optimize production from existing wells while oil prices remain high, the director said.
There are 26 active drilling rigs in North Dakota, and companies have indicated plans to add one or two more, Anderson said.
Beyond that, Anderson does not expect publicly-traded companies to increase drilling activity until 2027 because their budgets for this year are already set. Privately-owned oil companies have more flexibility and could potentially invest in more drilling than they budgeted for this year if prices remain high enough to warrant it.
There is little data available on what impact the Iran war has had on North Dakota oil production so far because data is not available in real time. February figures, prior to the beginning of the war, were released Tuesday and showed the state produced an average of nearly 1.13 million barrels of oil per day. North Dakota also produced more than 3.32 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
The daily oil production is 1.76% below the revenue forecast used to guide North Dakota’s budget-making process. But Anderson expects those numbers to increase when March production is announced next month.
“One of the things that occurred when the Iran conflict happened was that those operators that had curtailed or shut in production during the low price environment started to bring that production online,” Anderson said.
North Dakota Monitor reporter Jacob Orledge can be reached at jorledge@northdakotamonitor.com.
North Dakota
Runners will soon trek across North Dakota to bring awareness for families grieving the loss of a child – KVRR Local News
FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — For more than 400 miles, 12 runners will trek across North Dakota to carry the stories of love, loss, and resilience from community to community.
“After having run Haven since 2017, the 10.15 Project came, and it just is so exciting because it’s really looking at pregnancy and infant loss and putting it in a new light. And really giving people the opportunity to do something that you can see and it’s meaningful,” said Jen Burgard, Founder and Executive Director of Haven.
The 10.15 Project was co-founded by Haven, an organization that supports grieving families. The relay begins on International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. And during the four days, the team hopes to bring awareness to families.
“It gives you pieces of solitude, of quiet, of reflection, and also a purpose. It gives you meaning, and I think endurance is one of the biggest pieces of this. It’s the endurance required to navigate pregnancy and infant loss is extreme. And I think this really mirrors that,” said Burgard.
While many of the runners come from different fields, many have also experienced a loss themselves.
“When it happened in my family, it was kind of something we were all struck by. You realize how common it is. And you know, I want to bring light to that,” said Ty Casey, Runner and Learning and Development Specialist at TrueNorth Steel.
Casey has multiple runs planned over the next few months, but with this run in particular, he hopes this will bring awareness.
“If this is one thing that can help bring light to it and help people be more open and help people to talk about it, and take some of the grief away that would be totally ideal for us just to help out a little bit,” said Casey.
The relay begins on October 15 in Medora and will end on October 18th in Fargo.
-
New York6 seconds agoMamdani Considers Delaying Pension-Fund Payments to Ease Budget Gap
-
Detroit, MI30 minutes agoThings to do in Metro Detroit, April 24 and beyond
-
San Francisco, CA42 minutes agoCA to open 3 new state parks and expand others, including in Bay Area: Here’s where
-
Dallas, TX48 minutes agoWild vs. Stars Game 3: Key takeaways as Dallas takes series lead on Wyatt Johnston’s 2OT winner
-
Miami, FL54 minutes agoMiami-Dade deputies detain elderly father who they say shot and killed his son after a domestic dispute
-
Boston, MA1 hour agoBoston has one of the best public markets in the country, says USA TODAY
-
Denver, CO1 hour agoRed flag fatigue? Colorado sees near-record number of critical fire days
-
Seattle, WA1 hour agoFOLLOWUP: West Seattle pickleball players band together to save court access