Twenty-two cars carrying parents, students and alumni paraded past Eric Holsen’s house Monday afternoon, honking horns and bearing signs that read “Save SSP Theatre” and “Save Holsen.”
But first, Holsen’s supporters drove past the homes of all seven South St. Paul school board members, several times.
It was the final leg of a rally to save Holsen’s job as theater director for South St. Paul schools as the board weighed $4.1 million in spending cuts from next year’s budget.
And it worked.
That night, school board members, citing more than 300 emails and 30 phone calls they received over the previous four days, voted unanimously to preserve the position.
“A lot of people said a lot of very nice things about me, and I certainly hope that I’m living up to all of it,” Holsen said Friday. “But I really focus on the position. It’s a unique position among school districts, nowadays. But South St. Paul is a unique district, and I think this model for how to run our theater program fits this school and this community.”
What the community did not want was what would have replaced Holsen’s full-time position: extra-curricular assignment contracts. That’s the route most school districts take for theater. In South St. Paul, it would have saved the district $40,000 annually.
“What Holsen contributes to the school sadly can’t be measured like money on a ledger,” Blair Reynolds, a theater parent, wrote last week on the Facebook page Save SSP Theatre. “And that’s why he’s been deemed expendable.”
Each year, under Holsen’s guidance, the district puts on six shows, including a summer community musical with high schoolers and adults and a show with elementary- and high-school-aged actors. Over the course of a year, roughly 200 students are involved in at least one show.
The town does not have its own theater group beyond what is taught after school.
“I end up being not really just the school director but really I’m South St. Paul’s theater director,” Holsen, 51, said. “I get to work with these kids starting as young as third grade, and I work with them through their senior year and see them grow and change. They know me. They trust me. I know them and I’m able to kind of gauge and try to put them in roles, whether it’s acting or technical that suits where they are at in their development.”
His job also includes behind-the-scenes work that he said school and district administrators may not have known about, such as managing the auditorium for groups that use the space and setting up and operating equipment.
BUDGET CUTS
On April 13, the school board eliminated about 30 full-time jobs, increasing class sizes while cutting $2.52 million from next year’s budget. They also agreed to spend some of the money they’ve held in reserve and to dip into a trust fund that pays for retired employees’ non-pension benefits.
Superintendent Dave Webb said in an interview that the shortfall is the result of declining enrollment, increasing costs and “inequitable” state funding. The $4.1 million in cuts — which equate to 9 percent of this year’s general fund budget — were the largest he’s had to make in the decade he’s been in charge of the district.
“State funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation in over a decade,” Webb said. “The system is broken.”
On Thursday, Holsen was working at his house editing a video he produced for the South St. Paul Educational Foundation when he got the call from his boss. Secondary Principal Chuck Ochocki broke the news that his job was on the chopping block.
“I felt numb,” Holsen said, adding it was a “total surprise.”
The school board agenda was posted later in the day and word spread that the swinging ax was aimed at Holsen.
“We thought … ‘We’re really unhappy with this decision and we’re going to make sure people are at least aware of the impact of the decision they’re making,’ ” said John Raasch, parent of a theater student. “We weren’t sure how much change we could invoke in four days, but we had to try.”
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South St. Paul rallies to save theater director from $4.1M in school budget cuts - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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