MDN File Photo The Minot Public School Board voted at their meeting on Thursday, Nov. 13, to select Northern Auction to oversee the auction sale of the Bell Elementary School building pictured in this file photo from April 19, 2024.

The Minot Public School Board approved the recommendation to select Northern Auction as the firm to handle the sale of the former Bell Elementary School building southeast of Minot.

Board members Lacey Laudenschlager and Scott Louser served on the committee tasked with interviewing applicants after the Oct. 8 meeting when the board decided to move forward with the sale. Laudenschlager told the board after the interview process was completed, the committee recommended hiring Northern Auction to serve as the firm. She then moved to approve her recommendation.

“Our committee ended up doing those interviews, when initially we didn’t expect many applications for services, we ended up with five. We narrowed that down to three and then had interviews,” Louser said. “I think at our last board meeting, we anticipated we’d be coming back with a pretty vanilla report, but we ended up having multiple meetings and going through interviews that we didn’t anticipate doing. So, quite a bit of time went into that decision.”

Northern Auction Inc. is a Minot-based company that has been operating for more than 54 years. Kevin Beeter of Northern Auction said his family’s connections to Bell School run deep, as four generations attended the school, and their great-grandmother, Regina Beeter, gifted the land it was built on.

“The history makes the opportunity to assist with the sale of this property especially meaningful to our family and our company. This project is not only a professional opportunity for us — it’s also a meaningful way to serve and honor a place that has been a part of our family and community for generations,” Beeter said.

The proposal included a commission of 6.25% which would include advertising costs if the reserve is met, with a condition that the firm be reimbursed for actual advertising costs with receipts plus $5,000 for the scope of the work.

The board unanimously approved the motion.

Choice Ready

Principals Dave McQueen at Minot High School and Harlan Johnson at Minot North High School presented the 2024 Choice Ready results. McQueen explained Choice Ready is the metric used to ensure all seniors in the district obtain essential skills that will prepare them for the next phases of their lives based on their readiness to enter post-secondary education, the workforce and military.

McQueen said while the district has made steady growth, jumping from 45.59% of students being Choice Ready in 2021 and 67.86% in 2024-2025 at Minot High. Minot North, which opened in the 2024-2025 school year, mirrored MHS with 67.74% of students being Choice Ready.

Based on the data provided by the district, more than 90% of seniors at both high schools had essential skills, more than 50% were prepared for post-secondary education, more than 95% were found to be workforce ready, and 50% were military ready.

McQueen said the gains in workforce readiness can be credited to the district’s programs, senior internship and CTE programs. McQueen said Minot High’s target was the 75% threshold, as it opens up opportunities for the schools.

McQueen highlighted some areas of improvement, in particular saying administrators wanted to pump up the district’s ASVAB scores. An ASVAB of 50 or higher is required to be considered Choice Ready, and Johnson said he was interested in conversation at the Legislature in the future over whether that requirement was too high.

“We had a lot of students that did not meet the ASVAB score, but were very close to meeting it. So we had some real intentional conversations with our seniors. Our counselors did some work with them, meeting with them, getting them signed up to take it again,” McQueen said. “We really tried to talk to them about why it is important and for them to give their best effort.”

McQueen said there were incentives for students to be Choice Ready, including qualifying for the North Dakota Scholarship. The administrators touted the Choice Ready Dashboard, which allows them to track their progress toward becoming choice ready through recording service hours, extracurricular service hours, and other milestones on their road toward their future endeavours.

Louser inquired if classes oriented around artificial intelligence were considered a part of computer science and cybersecurity, and Johnson said there were some difficulties finding ways to incorporate AI into the classroom.

“There’s some different things they’re working on, but not specifically. That’s been a struggle for us figuring out how to make that work,” Johnson said. “We asked some other Class A schools what they were doing, because we were struggling with how do we implement this and hit all the standards when we weren’t given a whole lot on the good and the bad with that.”

Superintendent Scott Faul said teachers in the district were utilizing AI as a plagiarism detection tool, and for revisions rather than for generating content.

Louser asked how Minot Public Schools compared with other large schools, and McQueen said Minot High was ranked 17 and Minot North was 19. McQueen said if the schools reach the 75% range, they’d be among the higher performing Choice Ready schools.

“I think this is important that is one of the top metrics in our school system as opposed to a standardized test. We need to stay focused on student outcomes and success. I want to measure that we’re not 17th and 18th in our peer groups,” Louser said.