09/14/2026
RW School Board Workshop Meeting, Sept.8, 2026
All board members and all the principals were in attendance, along with 4 parents of students and a smattering of other people. Supt Jaszczak was stone-faced and greeted no one, which was highly unusual. The tone was far from jovial as Mr. Ryan started the meeting at 5 p.m.
The referendum update was removed from the agenda.
The superintendent started with his comments regarding the start of the school year. His exact words were," Disastrous, nothing short of disastrous." He went on to say that people have lost their trust regarding the fiasco with MTN's transportation. His frustration was palpable as he continued to reiterate that he had been in constant contact with MTN since the first day of school and spent his Labor Day weekend working with the company multiple times a day to straighten things out. Some of the largest problems were with MTN having to change their routing company right before school started since the original company was not working out. The new routing company has been better to work with, but communication with parents has been abhorrent, leaving people calling the schools and the superintendent to try to correct problems.
Another issue was a lack of drivers or drivers not showing up.
Superintendent Jazaczak said he had brought someone on board who wished to remain anonymous to walk him through the routes, and the routes now seem to be making more sense. MTN is bringing in a person to work specifically in Red Wing to fix the broken system. Parents in the front row were nodding to many of these statements in agreement.
A large problem is that the bus drivers have not been assigned specific routes so they are constantly relearning routes , and not all are local drivers who are familiar with our geography. Supt. Jaszczak said this is a situation that will immediately be worked on. He also wanted to stress to the public that the drivers are doing their best and this is not a problem for the individual drivers so be kind to those who are driving.
Other comments Supt. Jaszczak made were, "I haven't done anything but bussing", "Staff has been under extreme strain", "No choice but to fix this". He went on to say that in one case the routing personnel put in the wrong data, it was for Sunnyside in Mounds View, MN, and not Red Wing! { And this was with the new routing company it sounded like. Who knew?}
The board members asked for a process and timeline of sorts, offered to hire in the short-term, someone to help the superintendent with communications to parents, staff, bus company, etc. Some board members suggested that the contract be looked into. It was suggested that perhaps an emergency board meeting be set, but the superintendent was unsure of doing this at this time. {My take is that he felt that would be too many cooks in the kitchen.}
In regards to communication with MTN, the superintendent did say that MTN had set up a voicemail but that it was constantly full, so of no help. The parent app has also been nonfunctioning. The whole transportation discussion took over 45 minutes.
Principals were then invited to visit with the board, and each said the same thing in different words: staff was excellent, kids were enjoying school and some things were out of their hands but were being dealt with to the best of everyone's ability. At the high school level, there were some scheduling issues, but those were now taken care of.
{ On a personal note, my granddaughter was supposed to get on the "dog" bus, which didn't come, so ran to the "frog" bus. She hopped on... I know bad joke, but true story.}
Emily Siefelt,(she is in charge of curriculum and testing data among other things) spoke about student testing and curriculum piloting. She also touched on how we show our assessed student results. Do we measure growth vs, proficiency? Do we base some goals in the strategic plan on growth? { My take is this would be a long discussion, but growth is a much more individualized approach and more logical as a parent.}
The rest of the workshop centered on getting AI updates and an update on cell phone policy at future meetings.
Mr. Riester ended the meeting with offering thanks to the staff and a positive comment regarding parents. The Sept. 22 school board meeting will have updates on transportation among other agenda items. There is a referendum informational open house also that evening at the high school.
