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I spoke on May 19 at the open forum during the school board meeting.

Here’s what I wanted to say, but due to their time limit of only two short minutes, I had to skip over a couple paragraphs. Below is the full speech I had prepared.

Good evening. My name is Melanie, I have been a resident of Albert Lea since 2019. I am a licensed mental health professional and social worker with over 15 years experience in child protection and advocacy.

On May 5, I provided you all with a statement and additional documents via email regarding not only my own personal concerns, but also concerns from several others within our community.

I am bringing forward the same concerns as parents on April 21 and others to address the fact that this is a district-wide issue. They are pervasive and toxic, rotting our system from the inside out and leading to detrimental impacts on our students and our staff.

I sit here in front of you today with a message that I implore you to pay attention to. I am speaking on behalf of over 200 community members and counting. We want answers. We want action. We want transparency. We want the “hush-hush” nature of this district to come to an end. We want our new district leader, Dr. Steven Heil, to know what he is walking into.

I find it concerning that within the new hiring process, the person you all unanimously voted to hire stated in his final interview “People don’t really want you to know the negative, unless several major changes need to happen. I don’t think I’m going to run into that.”

Initially, I was going to provide detailed accounts of our district’s problems with bullying, behavioral matters, low staff morale, student and staff safety, mental health concerns and lack of transparency from district administration, including the school board. However, you have already heard and been provided with numerous accounts of stories with the same themes.

I believe the problems within our district have been identified and reported for several years, but district leadership is failing to respond effectively or efficiently. Instead, many of you seem to be working your hardest to continue sweeping it all under the rug and acting like “that doesn’t happen here.” Obviously, as a board you are aware of something, because you voted unanimously to place Superintendent Wagner on paid leave, for a six-month period, again without explanation to the community.

Why was he not dismissed? If Superintendent Wagner had been dismissed, Minnesota law would require disclosure of the reasons for his dismissal. Why is there always so much secrecy? What are you all hiding?

This same theme bleeds throughout the district, and it starts at the top. You all decide who our superintendent is and what direction the district should go. You are elected officials and you are not doing your jobs. You are not communicating with the community, you are not acknowledging the problems, or offering solutions that the public is aware of. Maybe you still do not know the solution, but silence is not the right answer. Silence perpetuates the feeling that we are being ignored, dismissed and invalidated, much like our students and staff have been feeling.

Sweeping the problem under the rug does not fix the problem; it feeds it. That’s the history Dr. Heil will be walking into and he is apparently not aware of the extent of our district’s issues. You cannot change and grow if you do not acknowledge the problem exists. Dr. Heil said his platform is Listen. Learn. Lead. I hope he will do just that.

Melanie Sanchez
Albert Lea