Dear Board Members,
I am writing to you again, concerning the sale of the old central high school property.
I was under the impression that there had been a public meeting, and a vote by the board to maintain the existing policy, and that the matter was settled. Apparently not, and we seem to be going over the same issue again.
Mr. B. In our previous meeting which was hurried we made decisions based on faulty information. To make a hasty decision based on faulty information is not honest or advisable.
I will summarize the points I made last time:
Selling this property to be used by Edison schools, creates a direct competition to the 2 public high schools, if for no other reason than it’s location.
Not negotiating a cap on Edison enrollment is equally worrisome. Nothing prevents the Duluth Public Schools Academy from expanding its school in ten years time at its other site.
Offering Edison Schools a ready-to-go school building, at far less than its assessed value as a school, and more importantly, far quicker and cheaper than they might hope to build something new, is a significant boost to a school that directly competes with our public schools. At the same time, they are not bound to accept every student. If they deem a student to ‘expensive’ they simply refuse to accept him or her, leaving our public schools with ever higher costs per student.
1. Edison is a public school.
2. The assessed value of the school is ten years old and suspect now. It only has that value as a school. As anything else it has much less value.
3. Edison can only turn away public school students based on their enrollment limitations. Ironically, they spend considerably more money on expensive special education students than ISD 709 does thus, in many cases, excusing ISD 709 from such expenses.
We cannot further reduce our number of high schools. If enrollment in them drops, the same buildings and much of the staff, will have to be paid for with fewer dollars of per-student-funding.
As our Superintendent has explained several times, when we lose a student and the tax dollars we need to educate them we also lose the expenses to educate them. There is a concern – empty school buildings. But there is little doubt that all of our current ISD 709 schools will continue on as schools for the long term despite enrollment losses.
If you add these two factors together it is easy to see that selling the property to be used by Edison Schools, would cost the district more money in a few years time than we gain now by a quicker sale.
That’s not how I see it.
Finally, unlike ISD709, Tischer Creek is not a government organization, and is not required to act in the public best interest. They might decide to sell the undeveloped parts of the property to developers, or they might refuse Edison Schools after all, and sell the entire property to developers. Similar cases are playing out with other Charter Schools in our region.
Tischer Creek is a non profit and its only function is to provide the Charter Public Schools with adequate school facilities. Furthermore, the Duluth Public Schools Academy is a public school. They do business with Edison Corp. for accounting purposes much as ISD 709 makes use of private vendors, accountants and auditors to help manage its finances.
Please uphold the sensible policy prohibiting sale to another, it’s there for good reason.
