More about that DFT email

This morning I got an email from someone who had called me earlier and told me he was troubled that I encouraged folks to vote for the operational levy referendums. Still he said he would vote for me. He’d read the old email from the DFT and my comments about it. It pricked something in his memory and he remembered clipping a story about it out of the Duluth News Tribune. He sent me the story.

I told him I would put it in the blog as well as a note that the Federation of Teachers had tried to get the public’s attention something I did not recall the DFT having done.

Hi Harry,

Read your blog on Sept 8th and it had a familiar ring. I dug into some of the “stuff” I had stored and found this article from the DNT, dated 12/12/2009. I don’t recall where the direction was or why it fizzled, maybe it just got shelved and nobody seemed to care; the course was already set and the wind was right, but the DFT at least did publicly raise the issue:

Duluth News Tribune (MN), Saturday, December 12, 2009
Author: Sarah Horner, Duluth News Tribune

The Duluth teachers union also is proposing a change in the red plan: to relocate the district’s new western middle school to Central High School.
The Duluth Federation of Teachers’ executive board sent a letter Friday asking the School Board to revisit the middle school issue, according to Frank Wanner, president of the union and a teacher at Central.
“We feel the central part of town has been greatly shortchanged and that there isn’t near the public support for the current western middle school site as there would be for Central,” Wanner said. He added that many residents living in the northern section of the Central attendance area are turning to other districts because of the loss of a secondary school in their corridor. Placing the middle school there could bring some of them back, Wanner said.
Duluth Superintendent Keith Dixon said there was solid information that led to the selection of the middle school site, mainly that it’s in the student density center, but that it might not be too late to reopen the discussion.
“I still think we made the right decision with that site, but if the board directs me to I can look at that option again,” Dixon said. “I’d have to look at what we’ve already spent on design and look at what we’d lose on the revenue side by not selling Central and see what impact those have on the budget and go from there.”
Not all board members behind the red plan said they would be opposed to considering the switch.
“I know there is a lot of work that would need to be done to make that work at Central, but if we could stay within our budget I’d be willing to look at it,” board member Mary Cameron said. “I think it could help with the
healing process for the community.”
Board member Ann Wasson said she would be hard-pressed to support the change, while newly elected members Art Johnston, Tom Kasper and board Chairman Tim Grover said they’d at least entertain the idea.
“I think it’s a better situation than what’s currently posed for the central corridor, but I worry that it doesn’t really solve the problem,” Kasper said. “I think the people out west will raise the same concerns about moving it away from them as the Central folks do.”
Members Gary Glass and Judy Seliga-Punyko could not be reached for comment.

Good luck tomorrow, our families will be supporting you, but we just can’t get behind the levy, sorry.

I looked back to see if I’d made mention of the news story in the blog but I hadn’t. However, within five days of its publication the School Board chair was cutting off the microphones of people coming to criticize the Red Plan. I did post that information.

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