Good question.
Maybe its union power in a time of low employment although both the Red Plan and the St. Louis County School building plan got started before the Mortgage Crises. I’ve gotten a flurry of email describing the foolishness of the St. Louis County School Board which will do terrible damage to the northern half of that District along the lines of Duluth’s enrollment exodus for a cost of something like $70 million (if memory serves.)
As for one of the school buildings that will be replaced with an attendant loss of students here’s one persons view of the loss:
Harry:
Having trouble sleeping tonight after all the calls and e-mails yesterday. You were a teacher, you know all about it. But as far as physical plant is concerned, the Cook School is on a par with any school in America. When I went there, coming from Mountain Iron, education-wise, I was ahead of the curve. Mountain Iron was the Number 1 rated school in the state in the 50’s But Joe Germ, Principal at Cook was determined to prove to the Iron Range schools that the county schools could have a facility comparable to the Mining Company schools and he did it. The Cook school had the finest library, science labs, band room and business rooms in the entire region, due to Germ and his stubbornness. I know you may have never been to Cook, but after 42 years out of the school, I was seriously dismayed how the administration had let the facility go to hell.
Harry, they have built a grade school gymnasium and a swimming pool adjacent to the school. While the Agricultural lab and Home Ec rooms remain vacant. The entire second floor of the original portion of the school is cordoned off and vacant. This is crazy. I have visited some of your schools in Duluth, and I am sorry to say, many don’t even come up to the standards of the Cook School. Not that it makes a difference, but if Red Plan objectors choose to car pool up here and see for themselves what the heck JCI is advocating, please do so. Seriously, what kind of power does JCI have over these school boards?
