If School District 2142 refuses to delay and review a controversial plan for restructuring, opponents may pursue legal action.

That warning capped a sometimes combative meeting Wednesday at the Cook School where over 200 had gathered and critics of the district’s plan to merge students in fewer buildings detailed their objections.

At the heart of Wednesday’s presentation by Nancy Larson and Marshall Helmberger is the claim that the district relied on outdated and inaccurate information to make its case for a $78.8 million bond referendum and failed to consider the full consequences of their plan on communities.

The group asked for, at minimum, a one-year moratorium on school construction districtwide while more information is gathered. As part of that process, they requested that the district and communities collaborate on an independent survey of students in Orr, Tower, Cook and Nett Lake attendance areas to get a better handle on potential enrollment.

Tom Beaudry, who represents the Cook attendance area on the school board, questioned if such asurvey were legal, but Helmberger countered that the district had done something similar on its own with a phone survey of 500 residents districtwide prior to the Dec. 8 vote on the bond issue.

In addition, the group wants to seek funding from the Iron Range Resources Board for an independent study of the viability of maintaining quality community schools as part of 2142 or a reconfigured district, and demanded a review by the state Department of Education of the information supplied to get approval for the bond referendum.

If the district ignores those requests, the group plans to discuss possible litigation and may seek invalidation of the election for fraud.

In the meantime, Helmberger urged those attending to contact their area legislators and District 2142 Superintendent Charles Rick about their concerns.

“Everybody who is here tonight, get on the phone tomorrow,” said Helmberger. “Tom Bakk, David Dill, Tom Rukavina — their phones should be ringing off the hook tomorrow. And they shouldn’t be able to get a phone call through the district office tomorrow. We need to raise some hell.”

Playing with

the numbers?

At issue is the district’s plan to reduce the number of school buildings it operates. Closing buildings will not only generate energy and other savings, but also make more efficient use of school staff and increase opportunities for expanded electives, according to district officials.

Under the plan, schools in Cook, Orr, AlBrook and Cotton will be closed and replaced with two new schools — one serving the north end of the district and other, the south. The plan also calls for reducing Tower’s facility to an elementary school only and sending secondary students there to Babbitt-Embarrass or the new school in the north, which will be built about four to five miles north of Cook. Babbitt-Embarrass and Cherry will be remodeled but continue as K-12 schools.

Voters narrowly approved the bond referendum on Dec. 8, reflecting a clear division between the northern and southern halves of the district. The plan was approved by a large margin in the south, but rejected nearly 2-to-1 in Cook and Orr attendance areas and 9-to-1 in the Tower-Soudan attendance area.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Helmberger disputed the district’s claim that it would save $5.6 million through its restructuring, noting that more than a third of that amount had already been achieved through staff reductions approved by the board on June 22, 2009. He cited school district documents that showed that about $1.75 million had already been trimmed through staff reductions, shaving the actual savings attributable to the restructuring to $3.1 to $3.6 million.

Helmberger noted that the district never shared that information with state officials as part of the state’s vetting of the restructuring plan. Even though officials knew in June that the district’s financial situation was much better than previously projected, the district and its consultant Johnson Controls continued to cite outdated budget projections in the report to the state in mid-August and up to the Dec. 8 election, he said.

Helmberger suggested that savings were also exaggerated, citing a reduction of $498,000 for general administration and district reallocation included in the report provided to the state.The elimination of the assistant superintendent last year is considered part of this savings, he said, but the district provided no other explanations for the figure. “Was Johnson Controls padding the numbers?’ he asked.

In addition, Helmberger said that enrollment projections for the restructured district were overly optimistic. As examples, he noted that Johnson Controls’ projections for both Tower’s elementary school and the new school in the north, combining Cook and Orr, suggested greater enrollments than currently exist in all three communities. He added that the enrollment shortfall could easily total 200 students, based on the overstated numbers and potential losses to open enrollment. If so, the district would stand to lose more than $2 million in state aid, he noted.

If that happens, the district will save only $1.3 million with its restructuring plan, he said. “That’s an expenditure of $5 for every $1 gained. Would you do that with your own money?” he concluded.

Helmberger asked School Board Chairman Bob Larson to explain the budget data provided to the state and why outdated budget projections had been used.

Larson didn’t address the question directly, saying the board hadn’t come to be grilled on difficult questions but wanted a dialogue on how to best provide an education for students.

“I heard something about survival. Survival of what? I came here with the idea that we would be talking about some ways of improving education in our district,” said Larson. “That’s what we’ve been working on for several years.”

Enrollment decline and rising costs made it impractical to operate seven schools and affected education by reducing the number of class options that could be offered, said Larson, who noted that Cook now offered less than half of the classes it previously had. The district decided the best way to address those concerns was to concentrate its resources in fewer buildings. “We will have more teachers and more offerings; we can do a better job by putting more students in fewer buildings.”

Board member Zelda Bruns, who represents the Orr attendance area, however, said she did question some of the projected savings, including the claim that nearly $3 million would be saved through teacher cuts which would affect younger teachers with the lowest salaries.

“Obviously, I fell down on the job,” said Bruns, who originally supported the plan. “I didn’t question the numbers early enough.”

Bruns said she also had doubts about the enrollment figures used by the district.

Meanwhile, Larson’s comments about survival drew a rebuke from former teacher and Tower City Councilor Richard Hanson who said the survival of communities was integral to the survival of the school district.

Other concerns

Nancy Larson’s portion of the presentation focused on those community concerns, noting that closing schools in communities would have deep economic and social repercussions. Uncertainty over the future of community schools is already affecting the real estate market, according to real estate agents, Larson said.

She added that the plan, as devised, is inequitable because the three northern communities, which pay 75 percent of the cost of the bond, bear most of the negative consequences from restructuring.

To bolster her claims, she quoted Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change and a leading expert on community schools. Nathan had been invited by Johnson Controls to serve as a consultant on the plan, but declined because of concerns about Johnson Controls’ methods.

In an e-mail to Larson, Nathan outlined those concerns, noting that Johnson Controls had made major decisions, inconsistent with the research he shared with them about what was best for the communities and was not committed to the kind of consultation and collaboration with community members which Nathan felt was appropriate.

Nathan was also troubled by the conflict of interest in which Johnson Controls stood to profit by its recommendations and the presentation of questionable information on technology. He shared those reservations in a letter to Superintendent Charles Rick.

Questions and comments from the audience ranged from the fate of abandoned school buildings to maintaining a quality education.

Kristine Reichel, who chairs the Greenwood Township Board, said it was doubtful that the district could find another buyer for its abandoned school buildings. That left the options of demolishing structures at additional taxpayer expense or allowing them to become vandalized eyesores in the center of their communities. She said the district needed to develop suitable plans for those buildings.

Some questioned why the district had selected Johnson Controls to assist with planning and had not sought proposals from other consultants. Board members said that the district had an existing relationship with Johnson Controls, which had helped with the installation of air exchange systems in current schools. A suggestion that another consultant be hired to explore the possibility of retrofitting existing school building drew a burst of applause.

Tower student Max Helmberger said that good and innovative teachers are the most critical ingredient in education.

“A new building doesn’t educate students,” Helmberger said. “It’s not the buildings; it’s the teachers.”

He cited two college-level science courses being offered this year at Tower-Soudan through instructor Ryan Lindsay, who promotes hands-on learning with experiences such as winter camping in the Boundary Waters. “Everyone’s pumped for these classes,” Helmberger said.

Others echoed that sentiment, saying that money spent on bricks and mortar didn’t address shortcomings in educational materials such as outdated textbooks. But Larson responded that saving money by operating fewer buildings would free up funds for educational needs.

Many complained about the lack of meaningful public input on planning while others said funds would be better spent on fixing existing schools than building new. Former Orr Mayor David Glowaski said he wasn’t opposed to spending more money on education. “But you need to spend it well,” he said.

Bill Conger, of Beatty Township, said that the district was taking the prudent course by reducing the number of buildings it operated.

Emotions run high

For the most part, the meeting was civil. But a call by Dennis Udovich to start a petition to remove Cook representative Tom Beaudry from office drew protests from the board and prompted Cotton representative Chet Larson to slip on his jacket as he prepared to leave.

Bob Larson and Marshall Helmberger got into a spirited exchange after the meeting, with Larson implying that Helmberger had accused Johnson Controls of deliberate lies and could be vulnerable to legal action himself. Helmberger said he drew no conclusions on Johnson Controls’ intent, and dismissed Larson’s implication as an attempt to intimidate critics of the plan to stay silent.

There’s little chance that will happen. Wednesday’s meeting followed a special board meeting last week where opponents of the plan packed the boardroom. At that meeting, Bruns proposed a yearlong delay on the north half of the plan. Cherry representative Darrell Bjerklie angered Bruns when he suggested an amendment that would strip $1 million from the construction budget for the northern schools as a condition of the delay.

Bruns responded that the northern half pays the lion’s share of the taxes that will fund the restructuring, yet had not objected to proceeding with plans to remodel Cherry and Babbitt-Embarrass and build a new school in the south.

“But now we’re to be punished, I guess, for speaking out for what we think is right,” she said, adding that if the motion proceeded, “the district is gone.”

Bjerklie withdrew his motion, saying it had been meant to reflect the costs that a delay might add to the district’s budget and was not meant as retaliation. The board rejected Bruns’ motion on a 5-2 vote, with only Andy Larson, who represents the Tower-Soudan attendance area, supporting the proposal.

Dozens brought picket signs to both the board meeting and Wednesday’s meeting in Cook, and held rallies in parking lots prior to the meetings.

“The anger in these communities is real,” Helmberger told the board at its special meeting last week, “and the financial consequences for the district are going to be painful.”