Minnesota’s Superintendent of the Year works to make all students feel welcome

While Dr. Laurie Putnam was named the 2025 Minnesota Superintendent of the Year by the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, she said the recognition is thanks to not just her, but the team she works with in St. Cloud Area School District 742 as well as the community of St. Cloud as a whole.

“There is very little that I can accomplish alone. So I think that award belongs to this team — not only our district leadership, but the buildings’ and staff and the community.”

Originally from Maine, Putnam earned a bachelor’s in history and a master’s in counseling while on the East Coast. She started her career working for Upward Bound, which provides support for students as they prepare to apply for and enter college.

“I already knew that I wanted to be in education at that point, and I knew that I wasn't a teacher,” she said. “I have the utmost respect for teachers; I come from a family of teachers — but that's not my gift.”

After meeting her husband, Putnam moved to Minnesota, where she first worked in the counseling department at Edison High School in Minneapolis. She still considers the principal she worked with at Edison to be one of her mentors, as he encouraged Putnam to get a principal’s license. She eventually took an assistant principal position with the St. Cloud district, and gradually worked her way up to principal and then assistant superintendent secondary before being named superintendent in 2022. When she was first considering pursuing a superintendent position, she decided she wanted to earn a doctorate.

“I wanted to make sure I had that training, that education so I could do the best I could for our community,” Putnam said.

When considering where to go for her doctorate, the decision wasn’t difficult. Putnam enrolled at St. Cloud State University, and finished her program in 2019.

“What was important to me was a good academic reputation and personal connection. I had done my superintendent license at SCSU, and, of course, it’s in our own backyard. I knew enough professors or people who work there that it felt accessible,” she said. “For lots of us — for whatever reason — there's that imposter syndrome that sometimes can be hard to move through. And to have an institution that values high-quality education while also understanding what that challenge can feel like, and giving access points was really important to me. I was glad that St. Cloud State was right here to do that for me and others.”

It’s Putnam’s goal to provide that accessibility to students within her district as well.

“What's really important to me is creating school communities where everybody feels and is safe and welcomed, and that they graduate. That is our main bar; the thing that we have to do is graduate our students and prepare them for whatever comes next,” she said. “So if we can create places where kids can thrive and they don't come and have their spirits harmed or their curiosities stamped out, if we can really help them see their talents, give them that first key to success — then I think we've done our job.”

That mission means even more to Putnam as she and her family have built their own lives in the St. Cloud area.

“I think this community has been very good to raise kids in, and I'm grateful my kids went through St. Cloud public schools, and I'm grateful for the education they got. They were well-prepared for college,” she said. “This community shows up for our kids. When I ask for for something, when our teachers ask for something — we've got LEAF, we’ve got United Way, so many people, Rotary — they just say, ‘Here we are,’ and I think that's unique.”

Putnam especially appreciates the community’s willingness to support students, as she believes the relationship between citizens and public education institutions to be symbiotic, and therefore integral for the greater community to thrive.

“I think public education institutions, whether K-12 or higher education, are so vital. As we watch — particularly over the pandemic — but as we’ve watched over the decades, so many of our public institutions are shrinking. Whether it's attendance in religious organizations or civic organizations, public transportation; there aren't many places left where anybody can show up and have access to all kinds of different people, ways of living, ways of being and have to get along, have to work together for a common cause,” she said. “My plea is that our community doesn't make assumptions about who we are — whether it's St. Cloud State or St. Cloud Area Schools — but that they really take time to ask questions, to know us and support us, because we are vital parts of the backbone of this community and our success is integrally tied to the success of the greater St. Cloud community and vice versa. I think we all need to be in this together.”