I can no longer put off visiting our new schools. I’ll confess that my PTSD from fighting the Red Plan left me very reluctant to visit these new schools even though I once predicted they would be very nice. It was a little like not wanting to hold a beautiful baby that was imposed upon me by force. <\/p>\n
I’ve gotten over that. My job, my very tall job, is to make our schools whole again. That means I’ve got to start checking them out. Those I’ve toured so far are beautiful. Piedmont is extraordinary. Yes, it sits on a postage stamp with even less open play field than the original but the school is amazing. I felt like my old one time buddy Tim Grover who was always such a stingy Board member but who, when we first walked into the then new Lowell Elementary gushed, “There’s nothing as fun as a fresh new school.” No kidding.<\/p>\n
I had hoped to get all the tours in before the close of the school year but I waited too long and that won’t happen. I have checked out the new Eastern Middle school (formerly East High) and gotten the full Monte tour of East High. Both are spiffy.
\nWhile there I bought a jar of maple syrup which Jenny Madole’s class tapped from maple trees on the periphery of the school’s property. <\/p>\n
I spent a good hour and a half there with Principal Laurie Knapp’s personal tour. She started out in the football field where the Physics classes were shooting off rockets. One nearly landed on my Traverse in the parking lot. It was on a parachute.<\/p>\n
With but one exception the faculty I was introduced to were warm and welcoming. The exception was a cool glance I got when I peeked into one class taught by a DFT big wig. I asked Ms. Knapp if there were 45 kids in it. “38 or 39,” she suggested. I’m not sure if my reputation as a teacher hater or the hubbub of 38 kids turning in projects explained the aloof greeting.<\/p>\n
When we hit SOD (statutory operating debt) with that projected eight-figure deficit when I run for reelection maybe his classes will be at 45. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can no longer put off visiting our new schools. I’ll confess that my PTSD from fighting the Red Plan left me very reluctant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duluth-schools","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10968,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions\/10968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}