The school board received an email a couple weeks ago which I’ve been meaning to reply to. Its timely and this is a portion of it:
The district’s finances have been tight the past few years with all the changes that have been made, but with the closure of numerous schools, and the selling of the buildings and properties, now is the time to look to our future. The Duluth Public School District is losing students, along with the funding to neighboring schools and districts. Lincoln Park Middle School has had 19% of its students transfer out of the Duluth Public School District the past two years. That is an alarming percentage. There is no question that this loss of students is currently happening on the west side of Duluth. The question is when will it spread to other schools within the district, and how can we as a District change and make students and families want to attend the Duluth Public Schools. As each child leaves the district, so does their funding from the State and Federal Government. As representatives of all of the students in the Duluth Public Schools, it is your duty to provide our students with the best education possible. Please consider adding a 7th hour at middle school and high school. As you are aware, the neighboring school districts all have 7 period hours as seen below:
Hermantown Middle School -8 periods
Hermantown High School -7 periods
Proctor Middle and High School- 7 periods (offer free busing into the Duluth District)
Wrenshall Middle and High School-7 periods (offer free busing into the Duluth District)
Esko Middle and High School – 7 periods
To which I replied:
Xxxxxxx,
It’s hard to know where to begin so I’ll start with the obvious. We don’t have the money now to begin a seven hour day. Offhand, I don’t know what it would require but a few months ago I got the impression that a million dollars would be needed annually to add a seventh hour to either the middle schools or high schools. We would have to double that if we wanted to offer seven hours at both the middle and high schools.
I think it is safe to say that after the last year of school board bickering it would be damn near impossible to convince the public to pass 2 million or so dollars of new tax levy increases. I think the only way we could pass such a referendum would be for the School Board to promise new classroom programming rather than staff pay raises.
I think the argument we would need to make would run like this:
1. For good or ill we’ve just bought ourselves half-a-billion dollars’ worth of new schools.
2. We would be foolish to let that investment turn into empty schools that would drag all of Duluth down at a time of promising economic growth.
3. New housing and business is the only way to help reduce the per capita debt load of the Red Plan. If successful it would also result in new state revenue when students returned to the Duluth Schools.
4. We acknowledge our past mistakes but promise that, with the public’s passage of a referendum, we will put all new revenues back into the classroom.
5. We owe it to ourselves to give Duluth’s children the same educational options available to children in every other school in the area.Xxxxxxxx,
I’ve started and stopped this reply to you on several occasions. That five-point program at the end is the most hopeful I can be for now. I don’t see us asking for such a levy until we have a new and trustworthy school board. Hopefully, we will have it after this year’s school board election.
Sincerely
Harry Welty
Keep reading to view X’s entire letter:
Hello School Board Members,
I would like to ask for your support in adding a 7th hour at the Middle and High School levels. Each year the district struggles to keep certain classes available at the middle and high school levels. Each year a different class is cut simply due to “low numbers”. While these numbers can be attributed to many different reasons, I believe the primary reason is simply because there are not enough classroom hours in a day. Children would like options that make school a fun place to go and learn. They want to be challenged, but they also want to expand their school experience and have some fun while they are learning. The students are given a very simple choice, “What class do they want to take the most?” They need to choose whether they want to be a musician, or speak a foreign language, or learn more about home economics, physics, anatomy, computers, engineering, industrial technology, or whatever else is offered. While that seems like a broad set of choices, the reality is that they only have 1 or 2 options, at the most, to explore the things that might peak their interest. The limited options ultimately results in “low numbers” for particular classes and those classes end up being cut. Career counselors will tell students to “get the most out of high school, take the tough and challenging classes, you will learn more, and it will look better on your applications”, but they also always say take at least one “fun course” How are the students in the Duluth Public School District able to fit in that “fun course” when there are only 6 hours in the day? How do you peak the interests of students who are unable to take classes beyond those which are required? Middle School and High School are some of the toughest years of these students lives. Students are changing physically, hormonally, emotionally, and socially while having to try their hardest so they can follow their dreams. Those dreams could include attending a college or university like their parents, or maybe it’s being the first generation in their family to attend college, or maybe its finding the class that triggers their path to a successful career at whatever they choose. Don’t we want them graduating from our schools knowing they were able to not only have a say in their own future, but be able to choose their own future?
The district’s finances have been tight the past few years with all the changes that have been made, but with the closure of numerous schools, and the selling of the buildings and properties, now is the time to look to our future. The Duluth Public School District is losing students, along with the funding to neighboring schools and districts. Lincoln Park Middle School has had 19% of its students transfer out of the Duluth Public School District the past two years. That is an alarming percentage. There is no question that this loss of students is currently happening on the west side of Duluth. The question is when will it spread to other schools within the district, and how can we as a District change and make students and families want to attend the Duluth Public Schools. As each child leaves the district, so does their funding from the State and Federal Government. As representatives of all of the students in the Duluth Public Schools, it is your duty to provide our students with the best education possible. Please consider adding a 7th hour at middle school and high school. As you are aware, the neighboring school districts all have 7 period hours as seen below:
Hermantown Middle School -8 periods
Hermantown High School -7 periods
Proctor Middle and High School- 7 periods (offer free busing into the Duluth District)
Wrenshall Middle and High School-7 periods (offer free busing into the Duluth District)
Esko Middle and High School – 7 periods
The Duluth Public School District has many things to address in the years to come, but one thing is certain, there is a need for 7 class hours in our middle and high schools. This is an area in which we can separate our schools from Edison before they develop their high school. Currently Edison middle schools only offer 6 class periods, but they do offer a block of time that includes PE, Art, Spanish, and Music, so the students in middle school at Edison can currently take both Spanish and Music, unlike the students at Ordean and Lincoln. As a District, I feel it is important to get back some of the students whom have left our district, some of which were the result of when Edison offered Free all-day Kindergarten, and the Duluth Public Schools student’s families had to pay $2300 a year for all-day Kindergarten.
Now is the time to act. It is important for the future of the Duluth Public School District to measure up to the neighboring districts, and provide a promising future for all of our students. Adding a 7th hour to the middle and high school days is essential to maintain and plan for a growing future in our district.
Sincerely,
Xxxxxxx
