[Speed Gibson,
Tuesday December 30, 2008 at 10:41pm]
District 281 Facilities Plan 2: Admiring the Solution
I wasn't expecting this until maybe January 2nd, but the Wold team of consultants today released its recommendation. Their 73 page report is on the District 281 web site, which I'll attempt to summarize here.
To address the over-capacity issue, they came up with 4 strategies, each with a variation. All actions would be effective for the 2009-2010 school year except as noted. For those unfamiliar with the district, the old Robbinsdale High School, now the Robbinsdale Area Learning Campus (RALC), houses both the Robbinsdale Middle School (RMS) and the Robbinsdale Spanish Immersion (RSI) K-8 program. Schools named are elementary schools except as noted.
There will be perceived winners and losers when closing any school, and I'm sure we'll hear from several of them in the meetings to come. Most of all, though, we should remember just what has transpired this past year.
One year ago, the public pressed the School Board into thinking a second time about closing a school. Those second thoughts coalesced into a call for a Strategic Plan, which identified the need for a comprehensive Facility Plan. Had the Board simply "done what it said to maintain credibility" back then, we would have closed a school the experts now say should stay open, be even more geographically unbalanced, aggravated the east-west friction, still have too much capacity, and perhaps missed out on some additional benefits like adding a section to RSI.
The consultants did a fine job, but maybe the School Board deserves the most credit for giving the District the additional time and resources to get it right.
To address the over-capacity issue, they came up with 4 strategies, each with a variation. All actions would be effective for the 2009-2010 school year except as noted. For those unfamiliar with the district, the old Robbinsdale High School, now the Robbinsdale Area Learning Campus (RALC), houses both the Robbinsdale Middle School (RMS) and the Robbinsdale Spanish Immersion (RSI) K-8 program. Schools named are elementary schools except as noted.
- The Two Phases Option closes Pilgram Lane in the southwest and Lakeview (or Northport) northeast. A middle school to be determined is closed 3 years later.
- The K-6 Option closes Lakeview and Northport (or Noble), all to the east, compensating by adding an elementary to the now closed RMS space within the RALC. Grade 6 moves to the elementary level, so grades 7-8 now fit in the two remaining middle schools.
- The K-5 Option closes Pilgrim Lane and moves RSI to Sunny Hollow (or Sonnesyn), allowing RMS to expand to use the entire RALC building. Sandburg Middle School is closed and re-purposed for alternate uses.
- The K-5 Variation Option closes Pilgrim Lane and Noble (or Neill). RSI is moved to a re-purposed Sandburg Middle School, allowing RMS to expand to use the entire RALC building.
There will be perceived winners and losers when closing any school, and I'm sure we'll hear from several of them in the meetings to come. Most of all, though, we should remember just what has transpired this past year.
One year ago, the public pressed the School Board into thinking a second time about closing a school. Those second thoughts coalesced into a call for a Strategic Plan, which identified the need for a comprehensive Facility Plan. Had the Board simply "done what it said to maintain credibility" back then, we would have closed a school the experts now say should stay open, be even more geographically unbalanced, aggravated the east-west friction, still have too much capacity, and perhaps missed out on some additional benefits like adding a section to RSI.
The consultants did a fine job, but maybe the School Board deserves the most credit for giving the District the additional time and resources to get it right.
Like all parents, I want my children to have the best opportunity to receive a great education. I pray for all our kids and their parents during this process that we may face change with courage and grace.
Especially, I pray for our representatives in this process, the school board, that they may make the best decision for all. This reminds me of the story of Moses in the desert hearing the complaints from the Israelites for "meat", where Moses asks God to strike him dead rather than carry the burden of pleasing so many people. May our board have courage and prudence in these deliberations.
However, I appreciate that there were criteria set and used this time around. I wish there would have been more than one K-6 option explored. I have taught in and prefer the K-6 model.
Of the recommended plan, there two things that I liked—the alignment of the middle school attendance boundaries with the high school attendance boundaries and the fact that closing Sunny Hollow as a neighborhood school seems to provide more logical attendance areas than closing Lakeview or Noble.
Of course, the recommended plan closes Pilgrim Lane. It’s not one of the criteria, but our school is a neighborhood school in the truest sense of the word. Many people here bought houses because of the school. When that happens, you put an importance on your school that is not necessarily there in another building. If our school closes, it will be a true loss to the district.
My other problem with the recommended plan is that there was no discussion of how the facilities of Northport and Lakeview will be maintained. I have seen the MN Dept. of Ed. report stating that these schools cannot be remodeled and new buildings must be rebuilt to replace them. If these buildings remain open, I think we should be shown a plan for maintaining them in the near future and rebuilding them eventually, including how it will be funded. Stan Mack has publicly discussed rebuilding Northport and Lakeview as one school at a site along Hwy. 100, but as of now, funding that could only be done by going to the voters and asking them to pay for it. Placing the fate of buildings on yet another referendum is risky.
I was surprised to read at the end of the report that the administration discussed the possibility of adding a world language program to all of the elementaries in the Armstrong attendance area and PYP to all of the elementaries in the Cooper attendance area, at the cost of $340,000 a year. In theory, that would be great, but after asking voters for more money to reduce class sizes, it's irresponsible. In this economic climate, that "found" money needs to be put back into the reserve fund to ward off further budget cuts. Isn’t that what they said they’d do at the meeting a couple of weeks ago?
Lakeview and Northport are usable, just too far behind the current State standards for elementary schools. They can be remodeled, but the State won't help pay for it like the others. Of course, they won't help pay to rebuild them, either. Maybe Obama will!?
As for the money, I agree that the money should be banked, at least until the smoke clears at the Legislature. After all, there are always be some unforeseen expenses in implementing plan. We don't even really know what the savings are or what the proceeds of the properties sold will be.
The cost to remodel Northport is estimated at 106% of a rebuild, so it could be remodeled, it probably would be rebuilt. I just want a plan... how much this new roof it needs will cost, how long it's feasible to keep students there, and how much we're willing to sink into a building that is going to have to be closed or torn down eventually. If PLE stays open, I'd expect them to make that public as well, though personally I feel better informed about the condition of our building.
Too bad they didn't do this facilities study earlier. Showing the public the money that could be saved would have helped with the operating referendum, and they could have even added a capital piece to it to build a brand new east side elementary.