I like Tonya Sconiers. Its hard not to. She is so earnest, animated, positive and funny. She is Denfeld High School’s Principal and when she called to check whether or not I had received an invitation from the School to be its guest for “a day in the Life” of Denfeld I couldn’t resist but agree to go. (I had received the invitation it had just fallen to the bottom of a constantly shifting pile of School Board paperwork.)
Anyone who puts Denfeld in this blog’s search engine will find a hundred references or more. In my eight years on the School Board I attended all but one of its graduation ceremonies where proud alumni and then Principal Bill Westholm presided. Tonya began working for the district 14 years ago overlapping her tenure with my Board tenure by four years.
Perhaps four years ago I got an earful from Tonya when I circulated flyers or put up lawn signs in the neighborhood we share having something to do with my criticism of the Red Plan. She’s a company man. The Company was behind the Red Plan and she brooked no criticism. Frankly, that is to Tonya’s credit. She’s not mealy mouthed and she’s not afraid to say what she thinks. I can work with someone like that and do so without the balm of agreement.
This was my first look at the interior of the new Denfeld beyond the new “Commons” where students begin the day, have lunch, and mingle after hours. Its still the old Denfeld only with hallways that are finally brightly lit. I have to admit what I saw was a grand old building brought up to the standards of a new age. As a Red Plan critic this is not the easiest concession for me to make.
I very much liked the team Tonya’s has assembled. We had some conferences. I visited some classes solo I got a few chances to talk to old acquaintances. I saw lots of interactions with students. Its not quite the Denfeld of the Westholm Era. Heck, the ubiquitous cell phones that every kids seems to walk the hallways with would have made it different all by themselves. I had been eager to see just how they would affect things. Their impact is just like it is everywhere.
In the preceding blog post which has my reply to Deputy Chief Tusken, quite likely old Denfeld Grad, I refer to my visit. He wants the children who are there and at our other schools cosseted for their own protection. Well, I went on an hour long tour of the grounds outside still made into a difficult terrain with melting slippery heaps of snow. We went to the Walgreen’s store and saw kids heading over to some of the fast food franchises which are expected to multiply. I did not sense anxiety about the kids gallivanting ways. Kids were negotiating their way with their commercial neighbors. I heard of kids who shoplifted, were caught, acted tough and lost the privilege to return for a year. These are useful lessons beyond the school walls.
This is not to say things at Denfeld are peachy keen. I know from multiple sources and confirmed that Denfeld has troubles. Here’s a litany. There are too few students so that too many teachers have to teach too many preparations. Some, but not all, of their classrooms have too many kids. Many old Denfeld families began shipping their kids to other schools. The boundary lines between East and Denfeld are not drawn with equal populations in mind so much as keeping Duluth Heights families happy in their option to send kids East. I’ll soon be grappling with this myself since telling Chair Mike Miernicki to put me on any committee no other school board member wanted to be on. That turns out to be the Transfer Committee where unhappy parents who have been told they can’t sent their kids to their preferred school can appeal the decision. Starting in April I can have a hand in continuing to skew Duluth children east at Denfeld’s expense.
Denfeld has a 24 percent minority population. I find that exciting. Its starting to look like America today or rather like America of tomorrow.
The part of my note to Officer Tusken that he has no control over is the future of Denfeld, all of our schools, based on the stretched resources we have available for schools like Denfeld. As I’ve said all along since the Red Plan that Tonya and I disagreed over far too much of our local resources, our property taxes, have been bled off from the classroom to paying off bonds. This year $14,5 million of our property taxes are going to debt service for you know what. In 1997 when I was two years onto the Board it was $2 million that went into debt service. That’s twelve million less a year that can go into school operations.
I’m torn about being the good boy some of my fellow Board members want me to be and not spilling the beans about our contract. While I’m deciding how compliant I’ll be I will say that I can guarantee that where we are headed will drive a lot of our teachers to early retirement because the diversion of property taxes to debt services is making their jobs very hard. Of course, they can stick it out to earn the big bucks that will guarantee them the high returns that their pension program can’t pay them and which is being ignored by our local legislators who are more interested in getting reelected without rocking the next election cycle’s boat than taking any of our state’s budget surplus and plugging it into a merger of the DTFRA into the TRA.
As of the school year 2012-13 Duluth’s highest paid teachers were 15th highest on the list of 300 plus school district’s pay. They are paying with that for that classroom stress with shorter lives. On the bright side that will take some pressure of the pension plan.
A couple weeks ago at a School Board meeting I asked Tonya Sconiers what she would ask the School Board for if we could answer her dreams. At that time she demurred. Yesterday she asked for a couple modest additions to her budget. I’d sure like to have the money to get them for her and for Denfeld. Cross your fingers and wish me luck.
