Albert Lea High principal: staffing cuts have narrowed electives and pushed class sizes higher

Sean Gaston, principal of Albert Lea High School, told the district task force that staffing reductions over the past year have narrowed elective options, strained career-technical programs and music scheduling, and raised class sizes in upper-level courses.

Gastons said the building serves grades 8–12, employs about 81 licensed staff and roughly 160 total staff, and currently has about 1,178 students (it was as high as about 1,210 at the start of the year). "We reduced our FTE by 3.1 positions," he said, and the school largely absorbed that reduction by relying on teacher overloads and leaving some openings unfilled to protect existing staff.

The overloads system, Gaston explained, lets secondary teachers pick up an extra instructional hour beyond a five-of-seven contract. "When we had the overload flexibility, it wasn't a problem to go ahead and throw in an overload and add another section," he said. As overloads declined, the school lost scheduling flexibility that had allowed students to take desired electives without dropping core options.

Gaston described specific program impacts. The ag department, which he described as rapidly growing, had a posted opening that was not filled; the vacancy limited expansion and affected industry/CTE offerings because the district hoped to hire a dual-licensed instructor. He named three CTE instructors—Jeff Jensen, Mike Leistee and Crystal Victoria—and said they can each cover roughly 10–12 courses a year, producing about 36 offerings between ag and industry that still do not meet student demand.

He said the EL (English Learner) program is operating with two full-time positions despite student numbers warranting three to four, and an English position posted over the summer was not filled, leaving the building below its FTE target.

On college-credit options, Gaston praised College in the Schools (CIS) through Riverland as financially valuable for students and the district: "College in the Schools is an incredible deal for our families and for our school," he said. He estimated the district pays roughly $30,000 to run CIS courses and described PSEO as far costlier—"nearly 8 to 10 times" higher—while acknowledging he did not provide a precise district-level PSEO figure.

Gastons also highlighted the music department—naming Suzanne Mauer, Rebecca Christinger, Eric Zinter and Mary Beason—as a "crown jewel" whose band, choir and orchestra programs require specific scheduling and contribute to timing conflicts that reduce elective access for some students.

He described a shift in class-size norms: "A class over 30 would have sort of caused a red flag… We are mostly working with classes in the low to mid twenties," he said, but upper-level classes have been capped at 35 and often run into the mid-30s due to room and desk limits. "If we continue to pinch down overall staffing numbers in the building, we're going to see more and more of those choices have to be made," Gaston warned, including more study halls and fewer elective sections.

Gaston urged the task force to weigh how to prioritize scarce staffing resources at the secondary level so core graduation requirements remain protected while preserving access to electives and CTE programs. He said he looks forward to joining future meetings and following the task force's work.