Mike Miernicki has filed for the at-large school board seat being vacated by Gary Glass. Mike was a popular History teacher. I subbed for him a couple times back in the 1970’s and early 80’s. After I was elected to the School Board Mike became the Activities Director at East High a position that had formerly been the Athletic Director.
I talked with Mike fairly regularly while on the Board. He was in charge of the East High Endowment fund that raised money from East High Alumni. Unlike the other two high schools no former teacher ever donated a huge sum for the youngest high school’s endowment. It also seemed to me that East Grads were far less passionate about their school than kids at the other schools. Donations from Greyhounds were few and far between. It will be interesting to see if this dynamic continues in the future with just two Duluth high schools.
Much like Bill Westholm its likely that teachers will look on Mike as a positive candidate during a time of low teacher morale. While Bill has said nice things about the Red Plan I don’t recall Mike having publicly expressed an opinion one way or the other. Mike may not have an easy time of it. I know of one other person intent on running for the seat and once again its someone I like. This person, who may be waiting for the last day of filing, is an outspoken and eloquent critic of our old School Board and its refusal to let Duluth voters vote on the Red Plan.
No matter who is elected to the Board they won’t find it a picnic. There will be some new schools opening and more teacher layoffs. I figure the latter will have a much greater impact on family’s attitudes toward the District. The District’s recent survey of voters found that only 17% of residents thought the Red Plan was a good thing. 45%, over 2 and a half times as many people, thought it was a negative. I suspect the remaining 38% who expressed no opinion would, if pressed, break the same way. It will take more than friends of teachers to turn this around. The Board that gave us the Red Plan were friends of teachers. They laid a hell of lot of teachers off too.
