Threatening school closure as a weapon against communities and groups that continue to oppose the St. Louis County School District’s restructuring plan is an irresponsible and ineffective scare tactic, and the school board should ignore those pushing such a damaging agenda.

The threat of school closure was the cudgel used by the school board to win passage of its restructuring plan, and it’s apparent that the same weapon is now being deployed as the school district has hit a rough patch in its efforts to implement its plan. At Monday’s school board meeting, a few board members advocated closing some schools this fall, ostensibly as a way to save money. Following the meeting, Cherry board member Darrell Bjerklie told our Cook-Orr Editor: “I know which school I’ll close first, and it won’t be Orr.”

Bjerklie’s reference was clear, and it’s appalling. For a board member to suggest, even in jest, that he’d favor closing a community’s school (in this case, his reference was to Tower-Soudan) in retaliation for that community’s continued objections to implementation of the restructuring plan is highly inappropriate. School board members are given substantial authority, and they are supposed to use it for the public good, not as a means of punishing communities that don’t fall in line with their questionable notions.

What’s more, the school board is flat wrong in blaming opponents for the costly delays in implementing their plan. It wasn’t opponents that overlooked the need for environmental review, an oversight that delayed the start of construction for months. It was the school district’s consultant, Johnson Controls, that made that error. It was Johnson Controls, again, that waited until July 6 to submit needed wastewater permits, permits which take months to obtain once the application is filed. Blaming opponents for delays is simply blame-shifting by the school board and Johnson Controls.

In the end, the school district is unlikely to close schools this fall, because doing so is ultimately self-destructive. Considering that the school board committed itself earlier this year to maintaining all seven schools this fall, a reversal would rightly be seen as a broken promise, one that would only exacerbate the hard feelings that already exist over the restructuring plan. What’s more, the school district has already signed contracts with its teachers union, which means the district will be on the hook for those salaries regardless of whether those teachers actually spend time in a classroom. Just imagine the public outcry resulting from that.

While the district could save some money on other staff, those savings would almost certainly be more than offset by enrollment losses. That’s particularly true in Tower-Soudan, because three other school systems, Ely, Aurora, and Virginia, are closer than any school in the St. Louis County School District. And since the school district is obligated to run an elementary school in Tower, the savings from closing the high school would be almost non-existent. But the enrollment losses would be enormous.

And it’s not much different with Orr and Cotton, which would presumably also be on the list of any schools up for closure this fall. In the case of Orr, summarily closing the school would almost certainly prompt Nett Lake to immediately pursue educational alternatives, and those alternatives would likely involve Orr, which would undermine the already-questionable benefits of the restructuring plan.

And closing the Cotton School this fall would likely prompt most students there to attend in Eveleth-Gilbert, which would be the closest location for many. That’s not the direction the school district wants to see those students heading in the long run, so sending them there this fall would be the wrong move.

If the school board is serious about savings, they should look first for savings that don’t harm students, devastate communities, or further undermine already strained relations with residents. Instead, the board recently voted to add to the district’s already sky-high administrative costs by hiring a new curriculum director. That’s foolish.

Unfortunately, when it comes to budgeting, it appears some school board members would rather point fingers and wield a club against opponents than take a sensible and constructive approach.