"Kids are already using it," Superintendent Minerva Garcia-Sanchez says. "To them, it's no big deal. It's us making a big deal of it, and causing it to be more than it really is."

On Monday evening, the St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education approved the new 2023-2025 contracts for the St. Paul Federation of Educators. Educators and the school district previously reached a tentative agreement just days before a strike was planned. 

The upheaval comes as the district’s finance officials have floated tapping a heretofore lightly-used program that allows public agencies to borrow money against future revenues that must be repaid in the short term, with interest.

Ensuring that you are always able to look to "the next person up" is an adaptive challenge, requiring both strategic thinking and culture change.