PLEASE PLAN TO ATTEND THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING ON TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 6:30 P.M. The Duluth School Board believes a majority of Duluth agrees that no serious compromise on the Red Plan is needed. If you disagree sign up to speak by 6:15 P.M.
One possible compromise is:
An East/Central High alternative to Ordean High School which combines Central H.S. and Duluth East H.S. at the Duluth Central site.
Rationale
The existing East High School site has the same limitations as Ordean. Both negatively impact their adjacent neighborhoods.
This is an opportunity for ISD 709 to solve its long range high school space problems. Instead of central students coming east to an inadequate facility, east students can go to a site which can accommodate the needs of a modern 21st century high school.
Advantages
1) The Central site is large enough to accommodate a combined student population and has room for expansion if needed. Of all the Duluth high school sites only Central H.S. meets and exceeds MDE site recommendations of 50-55 useable acres. No creek, environmental or traffic set back requirements impinge on Central whereas these limitations reduce the Ordean site to 11 usable acres.
2) The Central site is readily accessible from two different directions limiting conflict between vehicles and pedestrians. School board member Judy Seliga-Punyko has called the traffic surrounding the current Ordean Middle School “nuts.†It will deteriorate further when 3 times as many high school students replace the non-driving middle school students and the need for staff parking triples.
3) Significant cost savings can be achieved by continuing to use Central as a high school and preserving the recently built athletic facilities surrounding it.
4) In contrast to Central the Ordean site does not have and will not have the following facilities unless more property is acquired:
No tennis courts
No general use practice field
No soccer field or multiple fields
No softball fields
No second baseball field
No outdoor basketball courts
No expansion space to build these fields
No open space between fields for informal practice, warm-up, storage or general use.
Additionally Ordean, unlike Central, will suffer from a parking lot and bus drive jammed between the school and athletic fields where NO vehicular circulation should be permitted!
5) There will be no need to abandon the District’s fifteen-year old Tech Center on the Central campus which draws students from all area high schools.
6) Nearby residential streets will not be needed for school or event parking at Central.
7) $52 million dollars will not be required for Ordean construction including:
Retaining walls along Superior Street.
Access drives, roads, parking, water, sewer, electric, and traffic controls.
A holding basin for underground runoff.
Traffic control modifications along 40th Ave. E., London Road and Superior St.
8) A Central Campus could also be used for a Western Middle School, (or even a Central Middle School) to avoid the impractical location chosen for the new western middle school site. Another alternative site for a western middle school lies along Arlington Ave. in close proximity to Central.
9) Many of the City’s largest employers are located in Duluth’s downtown allowing for transportation savings if parents choose to drop off and/or pick up their children from school. Likewise many students take advanced classes at nearby Lake Superior College, UMD, and St. Scholastica or are employed nearby at businesses located in Duluth’s central corridor.
10) By utilizing Central H.S. as the second high school, the District has much more flexibility setting a construction schedule. Among other things this would avoid a conflict with the Ordean eagles’ nesting/hatching time-table which is protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
February 2009 Updated April 2009
Compiled by Concerned Duluth Citizens
