Executive Director Dave Conrad stood in the updated playground behind New Discoveries Montessori Academy. A gigantic Connect Four-style game was added in 2016, along with the play schoolhouse once used on a parade float the school used. The fence around the playground has been moved, too, to provide a grassy area.
New Discoveries Montessori Academy fourth-grader Katelyn Nomeland asks her art instructor, Sandy Kephart, a question using a Skype computer link to see and hear Kephart, who was in India at the time in 2010. Kephart was able to talk to her students using Skype, a web-based technology. Assisting with the technological link was teacher Jaclyn Gehrke and Director Dave Conrad.
Dave Conrad, superintendent of New Discoveries Montessori Academy, visited with Lucia Beste-Zehnder, an E-1 student, during a meal in 2013. The event was the school’s first Family Learning Discoveries Night of the new school year.
Dave Conrad
Dave Conrad never wanted to move on from his role as a classroom teacher.
He never planned to attend graduate school in pursuit of an administrator’s license. He only attended that first St. Cloud University class in the early 1990s because former Buffalo Lake-Hector High School Principal Tom Hoffman dragged him kicking and screaming, insisting he had the potential to make something of it.
Decades later, just a few weeks ago, the 63-year-old quietly retired from his role as executive director at New Discoveries Montessori Academy. He intentionally made his exit with as little fanfare as possible, hoping to avoid an emotional public outpouring he knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid otherwise. Just speaking to a reporter, there were tears as he reflected upon one of those early graduate school lessons.
“One of my first papers was on servant leadership,” he said. “I remember doing the research and thinking, ‘Well, if that’s what leadership is, I want some of that.’”
Many who know Conrad likely know him as an enthusiastic advocate for students and teachers at NDMA. Others may know him from his academic work in Hutchinson, serving as part of a team that established NDMA, and before that, New Century Academy, both public charter schools serving the Hutchinson area. But his 39-year career as a public educator also included work at Hutchinson Public Schools and other districts through the years, starting with 10 years exclusively as a teacher.
“There is very little I’ve done along the way on my own without other people’s encouragement, without their prayers, without their rolling up their sleeves beside me,” Conrad said. “I couldn’t have done any of it, whether it was camping out on the roof of Park Elementary School as part of a fundraiser, dyeing my hair purple for the students at New Century, accompanying a group of preschoolers and kindergarteners on a field trip, I haven’t done any of it by myself. It’s just a joy to serve with these others and all of the opportunities I had along my way allowed me to.”
Though his last day at NDMA was June 30, Conrad hasn’t put his feet up just yet. He is helping a private Montessori school in Red Wing become public and has stepped in as interim executive director — not on a full-time basis — to fill the gap there. He’s also helping a few hours each week at an Excelsior company that works with children, youth, adolescents and young adults with autism. The business is transitioning to allow its owner to retire. Conrad has also agreed to act as a technical support specialist for a single-purpose authorizer overseeing public charter schools in Minnesota.
These part-time projects allow him, “to do things that are in (his) heart,” Conrad said, while having more time for family, open summers and flexibility with his life. Because his week is no longer packed full, he was able to take a trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum with his grandchildren recently.
“I’m looking for those moments,” Conrad said.
He joked that what keeps him going makes him sound like he’s “waxing philosophic.”
“Every single year that I’ve been working — those 39 years — has been the best year until I get to the next year. Why would I stop that?” Conrad asked. “It’s not that I want to keep working 11-12-hour days, five to six days a week. But to the extent that my health and reasonableness will afford, I want to continue to contribute. I want to continue to give.”
The decision to retire now came about during a practical exercise, and not due to a long-term plan. The revelation came just before Christmas after a consultant hired to help NDMA plan for its future asked Conrad, “why haven’t you announced your retirement?”
“So, I did the math. I gave it more serious consideration than I ever had before and it made sense to retire at the end of this school year,” Conrad said.
A CAREER OF GROWTH
Conrad’s first teacher job was in Orlando, Florida, at the Orange County schools. For his first three years he was a first-grade teacher, including a year as a member of the new staff of a new school building. But Conrad and his wife were called back to their home state of Minnesota, and he went on to teach at Cannon Falls before moving to teach at Buffalo Lake for five years, where Tom Hoffmann pushed him to consider administrative work.
Then Randy Exsted, assistant principal at Park Elementary, retired in 1993. Conrad moved on to become administrative assistant at Park Elementary. From there he moved to the co-principal role, and then to the principal position at West Elementary. That’s when Conrad was nominated along with several other Hutchinson residents to be part of a Blandin Community Leadership Program group.
“It was a remarkable group of people who loved Hutchinson and had done a number of things in Hutchinson,” Conrad said.
After learning how to assess the needs of their community, group members received ongoing support from Blandin and Southwest Initiative Foundation.
“Out of that first cohort came Historic Hutchinson, Hutchinson Theatre Company, the business incubator ... RiverSong,” Conrad said.
Members went on to explore what they saw as a need for additional education opportunities in Hutchinson, which eventually led to the formation of New Century Academy. Then at the last minute, the intended director was unable to take the job, and the founding board met to decide what to do.
Conrad recalls, “Everyone turned to me and said, ‘That’s you, Dave.’ I said, ‘Why in the world would I leave the world’s best job for something this risky?’”
At the time, state law allowed him to take a leave of absence to help.
“I wasn’t a week into the process, and I decided that I needed to make more of an investment,” Conrad said. “I stayed with New Century then for their first four years.”
While discussing his fondness for his time at Hutchinson Public Schools, Conrad was choked up. But, he said, once he started at the public charter school, he knew, “there was no turning back.”
When New Century Montessori Academy formed, targeted to serve younger students, it shared three portable buildings at the McLeod County Fairgrounds with New Century Academy. Conrad moved to become the Montessori school’s director. The two schools formed a facilities committee and soon a group of local families stepped forward to provide a building on Fifth Avenue on Hutchinson’s west side. The schools shared the building, but eventually NCA purchased its own space at the corner of School Road and South Grade Road, leaving NDMA room to grow by adding classes and grade levels. NDMA had been designated a high-quality public charter school for a few years running, which qualified it for an expansion grant. It even purchased the building from its willing landlords.
“It was really good fortune for everyone involved,” Conrad said.
When the school started, it had three sections of mixed-grade classes — an NDMA staple. The Children’s House, lower elementary and upper elementary classes added up to 80 students. It now has three Children’s Houses, three lower elementary, three upper elementary, and two middle school sections, adding up to 240 students.
“It’s surpassed my wildest dreams,” Conrad said.
Hutchinson city staff hope to avoid a situation that made headlines this past month at an Iowa cemetery.
While the epitaph inscribed upon a headstone at Warren-Powers Cemetery in Polk County, Iowa, appears innocuous at first glance, reading the first letter of each line spells out a vulgar message. According to Hutchinson city staff, the cemetery's first efforts to prevent the memorial were not successful as there were no regulations prohibiting its installation with an obscene message.
A first reading of an ordinance update to make sure Hutchinson does not run into the same problem was reviewed last week by Hutchinson City Council. Changes in the proposed update include the following requirements for Oakland Cemetery:
- "Artistic renderings made a part of the memorial are not obscene, vulgar or offensive, as defined by Chapter 131 or determined by the city."
- "Lettering and verbiage on the memorial does not contain and are not arranged to contain obscene, vulgar or offensive words or phrases."
Other changes clean up wording and address material requirements.
Public Works Manager John Olson said he hoped to, "avoid any potential memorials that would include obscene or vulgar or offensive language or art, or things like that."
"By having this in place, by having our permitting system in place, I think we can avoid some problems that other cemeteries have experienced with different, either language or design," he said. "We have a lot of different families represented in the cemetery and we need to be aware of what is generally considered obscene or vulgar."
Council members asked Hutchinson City Attorney Marc Sebora whether restrictions might violate First Amendment guarantees.
"There is always a concern when you are dealing with public property and people being able to express their opinions," Sebora said. "But generally, cemeteries are deemed to be able to be a little more controlled by the government, as opposed to the public square of a city where those types of expressions of free speech normally take place. I feel very comfortable with the language ... and our ability to work with people."
The first reading was approved. It will be reviewed for final approval July 26.
"Just hoping to not have this problem," Olson said.
An auditor summarized a report detailing good news for the Hutchinson City Council this past week.
The audited comprehensive annual financial report, which tends to be dry but contains insights into the city’s finances, was presented in its 2021 iteration by Layne Kockelman of Abdo. It was also reviewed in further detail at a workshop prior to the meeting with the summary financial statements for the city printed in the July 13 edition of the Leader.
Kockelman provided a “clean opinion” with no troubling audit findings and found the city to be in complete legal compliance.
“This is the 25th year you have applied for the GFOA certificate that has been received annually every year since 1996,” he said. “That is the highest level you can receive for governmental financial reporting.”
The report showed the city’s general fund budget to be at $13.96 million in 2022 and 13.68 million in 2021, having steadily increased from $12.2 million in 2017. From 2017 to 2022, it maintained a fund balance of 40%, which is meant to ensure it has money to maintain cash flow. Kockelman said the city’s net position increased $4.5 million in 2021. This includes $1.46 million in government-type activities largely due to an increase in charges for services as all recreational activities were open following closure in 2020 due to COVID-19. Another $3 million was due to an increase for charges for service related to electric and gas operation.
The general fund increase of $176,756 in 2021 was largely due to substantial revenue for building permits. A valuation of $7 million in new homes were constructed in 2021.
Kockelman said most government funds have positive values. A handful of deficits were due to the timing of grant dollars, bond proceeds and tax increments that are to be collected. The city’s enterprise funds have sufficient cash flows and healthy reserves, he said.
“The easiest summary is the city is fiscally healthy at this point,” said City Administrator Matt Jaunich.
