FAIRMONT – The Fairmont School Board approved the two-year contracts for teachers at its meeting on Tuesday. The agreements cover several changes, of which Board Chair Nicole Green touched on a few.

“There is a 2.25 percent increase in teacher salary schedule for the 2026-27 school year,” she said. “We also have added a doctoral degree provision language to the contract, a $2,500 annual stipend.”

Other changes include a late resignation penalty of $1,500 after July 1 and $2,500 after August 1, an art show stipend of $1,500 and an adjustment of provided leave days to 17 ESST and four personal days per year, non-accumulative with unused days paid out.

Board Member Michael Edman said at least one, if not more, of the board members were at all the sessions going back to last fall.

“Good working relationship with the teachers,” he said. “There’s a lot of other little items on there that you can see in the appendix we will work through. Very happy that we got a deal done.”

Special thanks were in order for Business Manager Jessica Korte, as Edman said she put a lot of work into the numbers.

“For crunching numbers over and over again, throwing numbers at her and updating her spreadsheets, making sure we’re all on the same page,” he said.

The state speech team also spoke during the meeting. Junior and state champion for Humorous Interpretation, Leon Yang, said this year’s state tournament was a turning point for him after the journey he has been on up to this point.

“I was at that state tournament my first year, I was like a deer seeing headlights,” he said. “My second year, I won the tournament, and that was even more shocking to me. My third year, I was starting to get into it, but I didn’t quite get to where I wanted. This year, I was fully in it, and I got where I wanted. This is the first year I felt like that was the perfect tournament for me. It was a great experience.”

Edman said he would like to see a renewed push for further physical recognition of Speech’s track record of excellence within the school buildings, such as banners in the gym.

“We talk about it all the time, but we need to make it official,” he said. “What your speech team has done and continues to do is remarkable. The level of excellence is unparalleled, so we need to make sure that we brag about it more, because it is. It’s also an extracurricular that has tremendous life uses outside of these buildings.”

On that note, speech coach Erik Walker announced that Kathleen Walker, after already being chosen as the Southern District Minnesota Speech Coach of the year, has been picked as this season’s best speech coach across Minnesota, beating coaches from over 4,000 schools.

“I am extremely humbled to have that recognition,” she said. “I can only do this with Erik Walker and Miles Duffy. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without my amazing coaching staff, amazing supportive parents, community members and the school board. I show up because the kids are amazing and love to be excellent at their craft, and they’re also excellent people, so I’m lucky.”

In other news:

— Superintendent Andy Traetow attended a Minnesota Association of School Administrators quarterly meeting. Topics were largely legislative-driven, including school trust funds, updates to the READ Act and the state Blue Ribbon Commission on Special Education.

–The resignations of 4th grade teacher Anna Bents, high school math teacher Ashley Scheevel and high school paraprofessional Janessa Nelson were approved.