The Forest Lake Area School Board met for nearly eight hours Thursday night and Friday morning, but remains deadlocked 3-3 in the picking of a new school board member.

The lack of a majority vote in favor of any of the candidates meant that all of the agenda items that followed were not resolved either.

That means bills were not paid, the levy was not certified, and the audit was not accepted.

When three board members, Gail Theisen, Jill Christenson and Julie Corcoran, left around 2 a.m., the remaining board members, Board Chairman Curt Rebelein, Tessa Antonson and Mark Kasel, set a special meeting for 6 p.m. Wednesday to continue the meeting.

What happened

The agenda roadblock resulted from the resolution, crafted by Rebelein, regarding next steps for filling the vacant board position.

Adopted by the school board on Nov. 20, it included this language: “The special order of business of adopting a resolution naming one of the selected finalists to fill the seat vacated by former member (Luke) Hagglund shall be scheduled to take place at the December 4, 2025 board meeting.”

A “special order,” under Robert’s Rules of Order, is an important agenda item, set aside for a specific time in a meeting, handled before general business.

Because the board had voted in favor of that resolution on Nov. 20, no other business could be conducted on Thursday night or Friday morning.

“It was a sad night for our district,” said School Board Member Gail Theisen. “Being held hostage in your own boardroom for eight hours was scary. … Robert’s Rules is meant to be a guide. (Rebelein) uses it as a tool to hijack meetings and accomplish his own personal agenda.”

Thiesen said she was disappointed the board didn’t complete its business. “We weren’t doing our due diligence and doing what we’re elected to do: being judicious, paying our vendors.”

Rebelein said he expects the matter to be settled at Wednesday’s meeting.

“We need to get bills (paid) as soon as humanly possible,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll meet resolution on that, and then we’ll move immediately into board bills. Of course, that all assumes that we are able to obtain a quorum on Wednesday night.”

Appointing someone to fill the vacancy requires a simple-majority vote, he said.

“We did try earlier in the evening to schedule and postpone all business to the 10th, and (Theisen, Corcoran and Christiansen) were unwilling to pass that resolution or that motion, so I do not know if they’re available. I just hope they are.”

As for the addition of the “special order” language, Rebelein said he repeatedly questions members during board meetings “to make sure they understand what they’re voting on.”

“There did not seem to be any concern that evening,” he said. “We had already made an amendment to that resolution, so it was my feeling that the board members – who have roughly 40 years of tenure – understood the basic motion that was in front of them. I did not realize, and none of the other board members expressed, that they had any confusion about what we were doing on November 20th.”

“It is not the board chair’s prerogative to decide what rules to enforce and what rules not to enforce,” he said. “It’s my job to simply adhere to the rules that the board has agreed upon. And I did that to the best of my effort last evening. I plan on doing that again next week.”

Rebelein said the board has several more weeks to certify the levy. He also said there should not be an issues if bills don’t get paid until next week.

“I’m willing to have conversations with every board member who’s willing to reach out to me and propose ideas,” he said. “I threw out a lot of ideas last night, and they seemed to go nowhere.”

Seven interviewed

A slate of seven people interested in filling the vacancy on the school board were interviewed on Wednesday. They included: Andi Courneya, Scot Doboszenski, Princesa Hansen, Paul Pease, Kenneth Rutford, Jim Smith and Daniel Tuott.

Another candidate who was considered was Laura Ndirangu, who was a candidate during the 2024 school board election. The school board voted to include an additional finalist from the pool of people who ran for school board last year but did not win a seat; Ndirangu received nearly 11.8% of the vote in 2024, coming in fifth behind current board member Tessa Antonsen (12.2%). Ndirangu, however, declined to be interviewed.

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Hagglund resigned on Oct. 24, citing a move out of the district. The original plan for appointing Hagglund’s replacement – proposed by Rebelein – was to have the board immediately vote on a resolution appointing Doboszenski to fill the remainder of Hagglund’s term; his term expires on Jan. 4, 2027.

Hagglund told the Pioneer Press that he planned to vote on Doboszenski’s appointment himself.

An attorney for Education Minnesota, however, sent a letter to Rebelein on Oct. 22 stating that the vote would be illegal because Hagglund’s resignation did not take effect until after the meeting.

The board decided against that plan and voted instead to hold a special meeting to determine a different process and timeline to fill the vacancy.

The new board member will serve on the board for the 2026 calendar year.

Rebelein said Friday that Doboszenski remains his top choice to fill the vacant seat.