Among Stacie Stanley’s memories of attending Mississippi Creative Arts Elementary School in St. Paul is winning a spelling bee and eating pizza, she told students at a recent visit where she also heard a student choir perform the school song.

The visit and performance was part of her first day — Monday — as superintendent at St. Paul Public Schools. Stanley popped in on schools she attended in her youth and explained to the students what a superintendent does.

“So you’re like the president of the schools?” one student asked.

They’re both big jobs, Stanley explained to students gathered in the school’s cafeteria.

On Tuesday, she visited Harding High School to watch their unified track and field day — a Special Olympics event the district holds.

New St. Paul Public Schools superintendent Stacie Stanley takes a selfie with eighth-grade students at Murray Middle School in St. Paul after they showed her around the school on her first day as superintendent on Monday, May 12, 2025. Previously superintendent for Edina Public Schools, Stanley — who grew up in St. Paul — visited schools she attended as a student and met students and staff as part of her first week with the district. (Imani Cruzen / Pioneer Press)

Hundred day plan

Since being selected for the position in December, the former Edina Public Schools superintendent has prepared by making a 100-day onboarding plan for herself which she’ll use to gather and analyze information on the district to determine a formal set of goals and next steps that she’ll present to the school board around August, she said.

The plan includes meeting with district and community members to learn more about the district; she’s already met with Mayor Melvin Carter and has plans to meet with leaders of the St. Paul Federation of Educators — the teachers union.

“So there is no shortage of work that needs to be done, which is why I really needed to join St. Paul Public Schools earlier than July 1st,” Stanley said.

Among her early priorities are launching a superintendent-student leadership team and meeting with principals and other staff members as part of a process she calls “principal plus one.”

Returning to the district that educated her

Stanley is the district’s first superintendent born, raised and educated in St. Paul in the district’s more than 150-year history. She attended Mississippi Creative Arts School, Cleveland Junior High School – now Farnsworth Aerospace Upper Campus – Murray Middle School and Central High School.

“Who gets the opportunity to grow up in a district that shapes you and molds you into the person that you are, and then you get to come back and experience it as the new leader of that district? I think it’s pretty rare, and it feels really good,” Stanley said.

She replaces interim Superintendent John Thein, who served as in the role since May 2024 after the departure of then-superintendent Joe Gothard. Gothard left SPPS to lead the school district in Madison, Wis., where he grew up and attended school. Thein also served as interim superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools from 2016 to 2017.

In a district-wide statement on Thursday, Thein thanked district members for the kindness they had shown him.

“Thank you for making me feel like a valued member of the SPPS community. As I head into retirement, I could not be more pleased to hand over the keys to Dr. Stacie Stanley, who starts as your new superintendent on May 12,” Thein said in the statement.

New St. Paul Public Schools superintendent Stacie Stanley visits Bialia Lor’s first-grade class at Mississippi Creative Arts School in St. Paul as part of Stanley’s first day as superintendent on Monday, May 12, 2025. Previously superintendent for Edina Public Schools, Stanley — who grew up in St. Paul — visited schools she attended as a student and met students and staff as part of her first week with the district. (Imani Cruzen / Pioneer Press)

District budget

Stanley joins the district as the school board finalizes its next budget for the 2025-2026 school year, which the board is expected to vote on at its June 10 meeting.

The school board will see a proposed budget at its May 20 meeting and has received community feedback in recent months.

The district estimates $732.1 million in expenses in the coming school year, with an expected $51.1 million budget shortfall. The board has agreed to use $34.9 million in reserve funds for the shortfall, with the remaining $16.2 million to come from budget cuts and new revenue, according to the district.

The district attributes the budget shortfall to increased expenses — such as increased employee wages and benefits — rising costs of goods and services and no expected increases to state, federal or local revenue to adjust for inflation, outside of the base funding formula and local operating levy.

Stanley previously was superintendent in Edina

In Edina, Stanley oversaw six elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school, serving around 8,600 students, with more than 1,300 staff members, according to SPPS. St. Paul has more than 33,000 students and more than 6,000 staff, according to the district.

She’ll receive a first-year salary of $270,000 with her short-term contract going through June 30, the school board decided in February. A long-term contract begins July 1 and ends June 30, 2028. She will receive an additional salary of $37,384 during the period of her short-term contract.

Her second-year salary was set at $275,400 and her third-year salary was set at $280,908, according to district officials.

In addition to her time in Edina, Stanley also served as associate superintendent at Eden Prairie Schools. She is the president-elect of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators and held leadership roles in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District, Roseville Area Schools and East Metro Integration District.

Stanley also has worked in occupational therapy and as a math teacher. She eventually became director of the office of equity and integration for the East Metro Integration District. In her career, she has overseen curriculum assessment instruction and support services and English-learner programs.

Stanley has a doctorate in educational leadership from Bethel University and a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in K-8 elementary education from St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

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A judge handed down a nearly 35-year sentence Tuesday to a man who sexually assaulted and kidnapped his girlfriend, after which he was shot by a St. Paul police officer during a manhunt.

Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards said she agreed with the prosecution’s request for a long sentence because Joseph Javonte Washington livestreamed the sexual assault “for the world to see” and because he assaulted the woman in her Lakeville residence, a place where she should have been safe.

Joseph Javonte Washington (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)

After Washington assaulted the woman in November 2020, he instructed her “to drive him at high speeds from Lakeville to St. Paul,” which she did due to “fear and self-preservation,” Assistant Dakota County Attorney Caitie Prokopowicz wrote in a memo to the court.

Washington, now 35, ran and hid in a dumpster behind a funeral home in St. Paul’s North End.

He yelled from the dumpster that he had a gun. The officer who shot him reported that Washington wasn’t fully facing the officers when he jumped out and he couldn’t tell if he was armed, according to prosecutors.

Washington, who was naked, turned out to be unarmed.

Former girlfriend: ‘Lost a piece of myself’

The woman who’d been in a relationship with Washington said in court Tuesday that Nov. 28, 2020, “is a day that I unfortunately will never forget. I lost a piece of myself that I will never get back because of what Joe did.”

She said she’s constantly afraid she’ll see Washington and she can’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time.

“I think about Joe trying to kill me and almost succeeding,” she said.

Washington punched the woman in the face, breaking her eye socket. He held a knife to her neck and forced her to perform a sex act on him, Prokopowicz said during the trial. The prosecution also said he caused the vehicle to crash as the woman drove him.

The woman said she had loved Washington, but he hurt her “in more ways” than she could describe, adding that he continued to “manipulate … and harass” her after the assault by writing to her from prison.

He’s been in custody since he was released from the hospital after he was shot. A jury convicted him in October.

Believes he survived shooting to ‘rehabilitate’

Washington apologized to the woman and her parents in court. He said he regretted “everything that happened” and the things he did during their relationship.

He said he believed that he survived being shot so he could “rehabilitate.” He referenced his two sons from a previous marriage who he said he hasn’t seen in years. He’s most recently been in the Rush City prison.

Washington’s attorney, Nico Ratkowski, requested a 20-year prison term, which he called “a very significant sentence.” He said every criminal sexual conduct charge is serious and he didn’t want to discount the victim’s experience in the case, though he said Washington’s actions appeared “to be less serious” than other cases.

“He wants to learn from this experience, he wants to do better moving forward,” Ratkowski said. “Hitting him with the maximum amount of time possible isn’t going to help him do that.”

Case was about power, prosecutor says

The prosecution wasn’t seeking “retribution,” but “mercy and peace” for the victim, Prokopowicz said in asking that Washington serve sentences for criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping back-to-back rather than at the same time, which is what Edwards sentenced him to do.

What Washington did “was not about sexual gratification,” but about power, Prokopowicz said. During the assault, he ripped out the woman’s insulin pump — what she uses to survive as a type 1 diabetic, the prosecutor said, adding that the woman’s brother died of complications from diabetes.

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“I think about how my parents almost had to bury another child,” the woman said earlier during her victim impact statement.

Washington was taken back into custody after sentencing. He has credit for more than four years and five months served.

Washington previously filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St. Paul and two officers over his shooting, and the lawsuit is ongoing. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office reviewed the officer’s shooting and announced in 2021 he would not charge him.

By TODD RICHMOND

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities, allowing the case against her to continue.

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The arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan escalated a clash between President Donald Trump’s administration and local authorities over the Republican’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Democrats have accused the Trump administration of trying to make a national example of Dugan to chill judicial opposition to the crackdown.

Prosecutors charged Dugan in April via complaint with concealing an individual to prevent arrest and obstruction. In the federal criminal justice system, prosecutors can initiate charges against a defendant directly by filing a complaint or present evidence to a grand jury and let that body decide whether to issue charges.

A grand jury still reviews charges brought by complaint to determine whether enough probable cause exists to continue the case as a check on prosecutors’ power. If the grand jury determines there’s probable cause, it issues a written statement of the charges known as an indictment. That’s what happened in Dugan’s case.

Her case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a courthouse back door to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent. That case was eventually dismissed.

Prosecutors say Dugan escorted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer out of her courtroom through a back jury door on April 18 after learning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were in the courthouse seeking his arrest.

FILE – A sign is posted outside of county Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom at the Milwaukee County courthouse, April 25, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)

According to court documents, Flores-Ruiz illegally reentered the U.S. after being deported in 2013. Online state court records show he was charged with three counts of misdemeanor domestic abuse in Milwaukee County in March. He was in Dugan’s courtroom that morning of April 18 for a hearing.

Court documents suggest Dugan was alerted to the agents’ presence by her clerk, who was informed by an attorney that the agents appeared to be in the hallway. An affidavit says Dugan was visibly angry over the agents’ arrival and called the situation “absurd” before leaving the bench and retreating to her chambers. She and another judge later approached members of the arrest team in the courthouse with what witnesses described as a “confrontational, angry demeanor.”

After a back-and-forth with the agents over the warrant for Flores-Ruiz, Dugan demanded they speak with the chief judge and led them away from the courtroom, according to the affidavit.

She then returned to the courtroom and was heard saying words to the effect of “wait, come with me” and ushered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out through a back jury door typically used only by deputies, jurors, court staff and in-custody defendants, according to the affidavit. Flores-Ruiz was free on a signature bond in the abuse case at the time, according to online state court records.

Federal agents ultimately captured him outside the courthouse after a foot chase.

The state Supreme Court suspended Dugan from the bench in late April, saying the move was necessary to preserve public confidence in the judiciary. A reserve judge is filling in for her.

Voters in the Mahtomedi School District will be asked this fall to approve a $28 million referendum to fund improvements that district officials say will benefit safety and security, academics, performing arts and athletics.

Among the proposed improvements are a new front entrance at Mahtomedi Middle School and other safety and security improvements.

Mahtomedi High School would get a “hallway circulation” remodel, choir and band classroom improvements, new mechanicals, a weight room addition and safety and security Improvements. Athletic Field 1 would get new turf and lights.

The referendum also would also pay for safety and security improvements to Wildwood and O.H. Anderson elementary schools and disability access and seating improvements at the Chautauqua Fine Arts Center, among other projects.

The school board voted unanimously last month to go out for the bond referendum. It is expected to be the first part of a multi-phase bond referendum process.

“It’s not easy because we have so many needs,” School Board Member Kelly Reagan said at the April 28 meeting. “Getting started somewhere is important. I have been from day one somebody who has felt like this should be something that impacts a lot of students and a lot of people in our community.”

The Mahtomedi Public School District serves approximately 3,176 students across its six schools.

School board member Ryan Domin said at the meeting the Mahtomedi community has been clear about what they would like to see done with facilities in the district.

“I’m supportive of this because this is part of a bigger vision,” Domin said. “If this was all we were focused on doing, I probably wouldn’t feel the same way, but we’ve really taken that community feedback, and I can see how we can align that back to our strategic plan.”

Addressing safety and security is key, he said, but so is addressing other “aging mechanical systems that, if we don’t address them now, could ultimately be far more costly down the line.”

Domin encouraged residents to contact school district officials with ideas to work on private partnerships.

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Superintendent Barb Duffrin said school district officials have been working since 2021 conducting research, meeting with stakeholders and reviewing options for the facilities improvement bond.

“The list of items that we’re going to, hopefully, address has been distilled from a very long list of needs,” said school board member Paul Donna. “Of course, we can’t do it all, but I think we’ve done a really good job of distilling down to what’s really needed today versus what we can look at and maybe wait for a couple of years and build partnerships and tackle those down the road.”

District officials will submit the proposal to the Minnesota Department of Education for review and prepare for a special election in November.