I had a dental appointment this morning up along Piedmont Avenue. I took the opportunity to drive around the new Piedmont Elementary which, as I recall, will now house Lincoln Elementary students. My reaction? Bigger School. More kids. Smaller space.
The old school wasn’t huge but it had a nice block sized area for kids to run around. This school, despite all the negotiations for parking lot space across the street has a small playground and no more parking than the old Piedmont had. Don’t get me wrong. It looks like a nice school. But looking at its cramped quarters its not surprising that this was a school where the District had no choice but to use eminent domain. If they haven’t secured any more land I don’t see how they will be able not to take surrounding property in the future to give the kids some running room. The space is claustrophobic and hemmed in by businesses on two sides and city streets on the other.
Would Duluth parents whose kids have already been transferred to the Hermantownor Proctor schools really switch them back just because the school is a couple years newer? I doubt it.
A very different school board would have bird dogged this and other Red Plan sites to anticipate these shortcommings. Instead, with 300 million dollars to play with they couldn’t stop themselves from tinkering with the plans to add lots of unplanned for goodies. That meant at the end they ran short of money. At no time did Dr. Dixon and crew warn his loyal board that they might regret their greedy overspending. Now Dr. Dixon is gone, and along with him over a 1,000 Duluth Students. The Board remains along with their penchant of spending more money without asking permission.
It would just be too bad for them if they have to go to the Minnesota Department of Education to ask permission to raise the additional $15 million they want to add to the Red Plan because they won’t have Dr. Dixon doing the lobbying for them. This time the answer might be no. The State might want to know why the District never mentioned the extra ten lanes of swimming lanes (among other additions) in the original plans handed over for inspection.
