I’ll break radio silence again to share this press release from the St. Louis County School District from last week. It illustrates the plight of many rural Iron Range school districts, in this case one that has already consolidated many times over.
The St. Louis County school system is just one of the many districts that struggles with Minnesota’s changing and increasingly suburban-centric school funding system but still can’t pass a school referendum for a variety of complicated political reasons. The alarming headline sets up the drama over this fall’s election:
ISD 2142 School Board studies consequences of failure if fall referendum does not pass, concludes district could not surviveThe ISD 2142 school board met Sept. 9 in a study session to consider the various consequences and options for the district if voters do not pass a bond issue this fall. After in-depth discussions about programming cuts, teacher layoffs, funding options, declining enrollment and school closures, the board concluded the district would need to immediately begin closing schools, with district dissolution shortly following as an inevitable consequence.
The board acknowledged that if this fall’s referendum fails, decisions will immediately need to be made about closing three to four schools starting in the summer of 2010 as an interim step. After that, the district would have to begin discussions with nearby school districts to see how students might be absorbed into them.
“The school board has developed an affordable plan for restructuring the district, which would provide students with expanded curriculum in modern learning environments, so hopefully voters will approve the plan and the options discussed at this study session will never have to be implemented,” said Superintendent Dr. Charles Rick. “Unfortunately, no matter how you look at these options if a ‘no’ vote prevails, the board has little choice other than to close schools and make severe program cuts. It is becoming more apparent that our children would then ultimately have to attend school in other districts.”
The three-hour long study session began with Business Manager Kim Johnson reporting that despite millions of dollars of spending cuts already, the school district will soon be out of reserve funds. She said if the referendum fails, the district would most likely enter into “statutory operating debt” by fiscal year 2011, which means the State of Minnesota recognizes that the school district can no longer balance its expenditures and revenues.
After agreeing that the district cannot expect to see increasing revenues – due to cuts in state funding, declining enrollment, failure to pass three recent operating levies, and other factors – the school board looked at ways it might drastically reduce expenses if the restructuring plan is not approved by voters.
The board discussed further reducing program offerings, cutting additional teachers, closing several schools, and a combination of these approaches. Business Manager Johnson said with labor accounting for 75 percent of the district’s expenses, the surest way to reduce spending would be to close schools.
“Unlike the recommended plan where we are responsibly investing in a restructured district by closing some schools, these other options also close schools but don’t solve any of our financial challenges. These other options are not good for young people and our entire region,” said Board Chair Robert Larson. “We’ve already cut programs and teachers several times to make ends meet, and going any further will only cause parents to open enroll their children elsewhere. If we close schools, which ones do we close?”
Part of the study session included a discussion of potential criteria that could be used to determine which schools to close, including building age, enrollment size, geographic location, academic performance and others.
Board Member Darrell Bjerklie, who represents the Cherry attendance area, said, “It won’t matter which ones because the others will be closed in short order.”
During the study session, consultant John Powers said that during an evaluation this past spring of optional school configurations, principals at the district’s seven schools were asked how they would spend additional dollars for education if a new option saved operating money, and also how they would trim nearly $600,000 from their budgets in order to keep all seven schools open. Three principals couldn’t even begin to suggest how to cut $600,000 from their budgets, Powers said, and the other four would have to eliminate major education and activity programming.
“Bottom line is if we don’t pass this bond referendum we’ll be putting our schools in hospice,” added Board Member Gary Rantala, who represents the Babbitt-Embarrass attendance area.
“There is no perfect solution out there,” said Superintendent Rick. “What we propose is good, but not perfect. But I don’t see any positive consequences coming out of a ‘no’ vote. We’re here to provide excellent education for our young people. That should continue to be our main priority.”
I still give the district long odds to pass a referendum (the retiree and lower income dominated Iron Range is becoming fed up with rising property taxes) but this announcement frames the issue quite starkly.
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