The state’s largest school district is coming off a week filled with marathon meetings and hundreds of students protesting — all of it centered around concerns brought forward by half of the school board.

Troubled about curriculum and policy, those three Anoka-Hennpin Schools board members threatened a “budget standoff” if their concerns weren’t addressed.

Now, that threat has been lifted — avoiding a district shutdown — but those concerns still planned to be addressed, with changes to the district possible.

Throughout this, with not as loud of a voice as some community and board members, was Superintendent Cory McIntyre.

He sat with board members at an hourslong April 22 board meeting where hundreds of students marched and rallied beforehand and a five-and-a-half-hour work session the next night.

“Really getting everything on the table as a starting point, it was kind of ‘step one’ [and] was the most important thing we can do,” McIntyre told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS about the work session.

The conversation was focused on concerns brought forth by school board treasurer Mattew Audette. In a lengthy social media post, he called on fellow board members and district leaders to make significant changes to certain policies and curricula.

Audette states co-chair Zach Arco and director Linda Hoekman support the effort.

He adds the three planned to refuse to vote on next year’s budget unless the board scraps what he called “divisive programs” that include concepts like “systemic racism,” “whiteness,” “gender identity issues,” and “anti-capitalism.”

That threat was lifted following the April 23 work session.

“That doesn’t happen without some hard conversations without some differences of opinion,” McIntyre said. “That’s the essence of public school. We serve everyone, so that brings with it varying and a wide range of perspectives.”

While there’s resolution now, the superintendent says the concerns from the three board members are far from tabled.

“We’re in the middle of putting together a plan for that, that will address probably more than half of the items before the end of the school year,” McIntyre said.

That plan, he says, could include revisiting current curricula and district policy. The district tells 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the board will be addressing those plans in the next week.

“We really need the board to be as much in alignment on those things as possible,” McIntyre said.