Butterfield--Approximately 75 Butterfield-Odin Public School students are currently staging a protest on behalf of embattled administrator Lisa Shellum.

The protest began at 8 a.m., and the students plan to remain sitting in the gym all day. They could do the same tomorrow if tonight’s school board meeting doesn’t turn out in their favor.

The board recently declined to renew Shellum’s contract as superintendent for next year. She’s also the principal, but putting her on paid administrative leave for the rest of the school year is on tonight’s agenda.

Students said they’re demanding Shellum be restored to her position and/or that the four board members who comprise the majority--Joel Penner, Leon Wenner, Tammy Wolle, and Andy Pierson--resign. The board is bitterly divided, 4-3, over Shellum’s fate.

Shellum said she only learned of the protest this morning, and she addressed the students in the gym around 10:45 a.m. After she spoke, the students ran in for a group-hug, with Shellum at the center.

“I am so proud of you,” she said. “I’m kind of overwhelmed.”

After departing the gym, Shellum said the protest “is not about me, it’s bigger than me, it’s about their school.” “I can come and go, we all can come and go, but they have a right to graduate from this school with people who care about them from the top-down.”

Junior Tyler Miller is acting as the quasi-master of ceremonies in the gym, and he said students want Shellum to stay. They also don’t understand why the majority on the board is so eager to dispose of her.

Julia Hiebert and a few of her fellow seniors lit this wildfire protest, she said. Students long had the idea of staging a protest of this nature, but, as they were texting among themselves last night, students of all ages began to take hold of the notion.

Hiebert and others plan to attend tonight’s board meeting as a show of solidarity with the beleagured Shellum, she said. Of the four members who want Shellum out, “I don’t have much respect for them.”

Students are so enamored of Shellum because she’s not solely focused on their performance within the four walls of the school building; she also cares about them in their personal lives, Hiebert said. “She cares so much, she’s helped people in their home lives, too; it’s not just school, it’s about helping people.”

More on this story as updates warrant.