I want to heal this community and put an end to the war about our public schools. I am afraid that not selling Edison will do the following things:
1. Embitter voters who will then vote against desperately needed future operating levies…
2. Turn Edison voters (now 10% of the school voting community) into voters who will not vote for ISD 709 operating levies…
3. Deprive us of some momentary (3 or 4 year’s worth) relief from some onerous personnel cuts, which will….
4. Drive even more families out of the ISD 709 schools, leading to…
5. A continued downward fiscal spiral of teacher layoffs, reduced course offerings, continued high class sizes, and an inability to attend to a growing divide between east and west Duluth and rich and poor Duluth.
If we sell Central High to Edison on the other hand there is a possibility that:
1. We will cement positive relations with that growing Edison voting population…
2. Which will help us pass new operating levies.
3. Get past the bitterness that the Charter Schools inspired twenty years ago.
4. Afford ISD 709 protection from further encroachment on our high school student population by giving us a chance to negotiate enrollment caps on Edison’s student population. As many people are reminding us, Edison will build a new school anyway. Let us assure that in ten years they don’t build an addition.
The primary unstated reason that seems to be the driving force for not selling seems selfish and myopic. In short it is the resentment of old Red Plan supporters that:
1. Their Golden Red Plan has left a legacy of destruction that they did not anticipate, compounded by…
2. The symbolic proof of their failure to win back Edison students to ISD 709 with their glitzy expensive and grossly excessive renovation of the entire facility plan……….plus the embarrassing decision to drop planned renovations to Old Central which will now require another $18 million dollars of spending to keep the building habitable and operable for the next fifty years……. leading to more embittered voters who will……….I am sure that you get the point.
