MAPLETON, N.D. — A state mediation team will hear a dispute over teacher contracts between the teachers union and school board for the Mapleton Public School District.

The North Dakota Education Fact Finding Commission will hold a public hearing at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 27, at the elementary school at 300 First St. in Mapleton, which is located halfway between West Fargo and Casselton.

Students, teachers, school employees and interested citizens are invited to attend and speak.

Mapleton Education Association President Jennifer Helland said the teachers union and school board are at an impasse over teacher salaries for the 2025-2027 contract.

“As required by Century Code, the fact-finding commission is then notified and they step in to assist us to hopefully come to the last, best proposals that we can agree on,” she said.

The school board is proposing a district-wide salary freeze due to financial difficulties, while the teachers union maintains a 3% cost-of-living increase is required under the teacher contract.

Helland said the teacher contract has a “maintenance of standards” clause that guarantees such an increase each negotiating cycle, as a way of attracting and retaining teachers.

“When the board came to us with a freeze, not only was their last offer regressive in terms of their offerings, it doesn’t uphold that maintenance of standards,” Helland said.

Josh Radcliffe, president of the Mapleton School Board, said everything in the contract, including that clause, is up for negotiation if one party brings it to the table.

“You can’t decide something today and expect it to hold true for the rest of forever,” he said.

The Mapleton Public School offers kindergarten through sixth grade, with students in upper grades attending school in either Casselton or West Fargo.

When the current building was constructed and opened in 2017, there were approximately 90 students; now, enrollment has jumped to about 240 students, Radcliffe said.

The district’s financial difficulties date back seven or eight years, he said, to mistakes made by a then-business manager.

While payroll taxes were taken out of employee checks, they were not paid to the state of North Dakota or to the Internal Revenue Service, Radcliffe said, and it’s taken years to climb out of the hole.

“We’re not in a good financial situation. Not extremely bad, but it’s not where we feel comfortable,” Radcliffe said.

The proposed pay freeze applies to all staff, including teachers, the superintendent, business manager, cooks, secretaries, paraprofessionals, bus drivers and janitors. The board also decided not to take pay for at least the next year, Radcliffe said.

Staff cuts were considered but met with opposition. The board has also discussed cutting its preschool program or sixth grade from the school, he said, because the district doesn’t have the funds.

Helland hopes members of the community will come to the hearing Tuesday.

“Having them come to support us as educators and their children in classrooms, and knowing that if things come to pass, where changes are made and class sizes grow … we want their voices to be heard,” she said.

On this date in 1909, burglars dynamited the safe of the First State Bank of Englevale, stealing $3,600 in cash and escaping undetected, leaving extensive damage and limited clues.

Here’s the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:

Gaining entrance by forcing the front door, burglars this morning dynamited the safe of the First State Bank of Englevale, a small town thirteen miles southwest of Lisbon, secured $3,600 in currency and made good their escape, leaving practically no clue behind which can be used by the authorities in detecting the yeggmen.

Not until 5 o’clock this morning was the robbery discovered despite the fact that sufficient dynamite was used to wreck the safe, blow out the plate glass front and tear a hole in the brick work in the front of the building.

The majority of the stock of the bank is held in the estate of the late H. F. Opfer of this city. J. L. Opfer, a son, who is transacting business in the cities at present, is vice president, while E. G. Opfer of this city is a director.

Suspicion at first pointed to three strangers who were seen at Englevale last evening, but this theory was shattered when two of the men were located at Verona and they satisfied the authorities that they were not the men wanted. No train leaves Englevale during the night and no strange autos were seen about the village.

The bank building is a one-story structure surrounded by business houses with no one sleeping in the neighborhood. According to the report received by E. G. Opfer this morning, some residents recollect hearing an explosion about 1:10 a.m., but thought nothing of it and failed to investigate.

At 5 o’clock Wm. Norum, cashier of the bank, arose and saw the shattered front of the bank from his home, and coming to the scene found the condition of affairs.

Tracks of a pair of ponies entering the village from the west, and returning in the same direction, were discovered this morning. Fresh footprints were also found along the railroad track and it is suspected that when one of these clues is followed up that the guilty parties may be apprehended.

The loss of $3,600 in cash, as well as the damage to the building and safe, is fully covered by insurance. Notes and books of the bank which were also in the safe were not touched.

The burglary was reported at the office of Sec. W. C. Macfadden of the North Dakota State Bankers’ association, and every effort will be made to locate the robbers.