On the inevitability of a new Edison
Duluth Reader columnist, John Ramos, has weighed in on Monday’s special school board meeting. Interestingly, he’s not particularly vexed by the subject. His interest was mainly to see what a school board meeting is like. Perhaps he wanted to see if his fellow Reader columnist Loren Martell was making stuff up.
I’m glad I read it because I haven’t had a chance to review a recording of it yet and John managed to get one of the quotes I was interested in. Our former Chair, Judy Seliga-Punyko, mentioned me without naming me. Her complaint which she thinks should be investigated, no doubt by our Attorney Kevin Rupp, might yield grounds for trying to remove another board member. (That subject is covered in Loren Martel’s latest column which describes the April 19th meeting and not the one John Ramos reported on.) I got quite a chuckle out of Mr. Ramos’s take on Judy’s envious imagining of how a DPSA Board meeting is run. As for me, Judy said:
“You know, I am concerned, too, because I heard things about a couple of the board members kind of negotiating behind the scenes a little bit with Edison, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I would question them.”
I’m not the only person skulking behind the scenes. Nora Sandstad has been checking in with the Corps of Engineers and encouraging others to do what they can to nit pic the project at public meetings. Possibly she wishes to scuttle the “competition.”
I can’t guarantee what the Duluth Planning Commission will do or any other regulatory bodies. If, by chance, the public employees union successfully puts the kibosh on this site it won’t deter the DSPA. This following email sent to us yesterday points to one possible alternative should Snowflake fall through. With all the unhappy ISD 709 families threatening to continue the mass exodus of our kids as we take away the zero hour and who knows what all else the DPSA will have no shortage of potential students when the dust settles. Maybe, as I suggested, these new alternatives will give them room for even more kids than they currently plan to teach:
I have been following the news on ISD 709. I looked up the enrollment of the combined high schools for ISD 709 and it looks like on the high end around 2500 kids total at East and Denfeld. If North Star Academy achieves their enrollment of 700 and Hermantown with their new facility attracts 100 kids and the catholic high school happens and they have an enrollment of 200, that is around 1,000 kids that are in play. Not everyone in the high school game is going to survive this big change. That is a fact everyone has to just accept.
Marshall is on the same street as North Star and I believe with an enrollment of 400. A large number of kids go to Marshall from the catholic schools. Marshall could close just on loss of enrollment from the catholic schools if the catholic high school happens. Marshall has capacity for 900-1000 kids. It did have an enrollment of 900 at one time. In the late 90’s they had an enrollment of 600. They are half empty right now. They will be affected immediately with a North Star new facility and catholic high school. I believe the Marshall campus will close almost immediately. I really see that campus being the future high school for North Star( if Central is not sold to them). Marshall has to be at the tipping point right now with those low numbers. Can they afford to loose 100 kids? Not likely. Just 100 kids is 25% of their enrollment.
The board of ISD 709 needs to understand this potential scenario. There may be another building in play very soon.
