Here’s an interesting email that was just sent to me about four years too late. What did the DFT get in return for staying silent?
Greetings D.F.T. Bargaining Unit Members:
Today I sent the following e-mail to the Superintendent and School Board on behalf of the Executive Board. In addition to the rationale contained in the e-mail, we are very concerned about the integrity and continuation of our middle school program and contract language supporting it. We are also concerned about the number of students we have lost this year to surrounding school districts:
The Executive Board of the Duluth Federation of Teachers at our meeting held Monday, December 7, 2009, passed a motion to request that the Duluth School Board re-consider the site for the western middle school giving special consideration to utilization of the Central High School site. This motion was passed after consideration of a number of factors. Primary among these was the possibility of an imbalance in student enrollment between the eastern and western high schools should present trends continue. We feel that using the Central site for the middle school would be most likely to encourage families who are now choosing to send their children to other school districts and those who may be intending to choose the eastern middle school to have their children attend a middle school at the Central site. This would create a middle school student body which would be likely then to move in greater numbers to the western high school. We also considered the affect on the central part of town of not having any secondary building and understand fully community concerns in that regard. Another consideration would be the reduction in property values which has taken place since initial decisions were reached and the likelihood of there being little or no financial advantage to sale of the Central site. Selling the Central site is something that is not easily understood by a large segment of our community no matter how well the rationale is presented. No doubt you too have heard many times members of the public say they are in favor of the Long Range Facilities Plan but believe it would be a shame to lose the Central site.
Thank you.
Frank Wanner, President
Duluth Federation of Teachers
