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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Flexibility needed to salvage ISD 2142

Posted 6/18/11

Thank you for the courteous treatment received when I stopped by your office to start my online subscription.  I also have to commend you for your “Fun Times” circular - it is so well put …

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Flexibility needed to salvage ISD 2142

Posted

Thank you for the courteous treatment received when I stopped by your office to start my online subscription.  I also have to commend you for your “Fun Times” circular - it is so well put together, and so informative, that I really cannot see how anyone doing business in your area could justify not advertising in it.  Well written, informative, and chock-full of useful information for the entire summer.  Congratulations.

I hope no one will mind a brief summary of the ISD 2142 school situation, as seen by this presumably ignorant and misinformed outsider.  I’ve been following this issue from a distance for the past couple of years, and have to say it has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Assumptions were made that all the students from the existing school district were pretty well locked-in, or would find the new building so attractive that all their other issues would just melt away.  I really do not think this will be the case, and have what may prove a useful idea.  I’ll save that idea for the end, and will first show why it will be so important to be creative enough to use it.

1.  The new school will need as many students as it can get, because the state pays the school district for each student it gets.

2.   To pay off the cost of the new school, located just north of Cook, the school district will need students from Tower, Orr, and Nett Lake, as well as those from the Cook area.

3.  Tower residents identify with their neighbors in Ely more than with their neighbors in Cook.  This comes from long-standing commercial, social, church, and family ties.  The lines on a map that show Tower as part of the same school district as Cook and Orr, do not reflect this.

4.  Most of the students coming from Orr are actually coming from Nett Lake.  This means they are not traveling just the 17 miles from Orr, but rather 37 miles from Nett Lake - each way, every day.

5.  Nett Lake tribal members have a long-standing history of racial and personal disputes with the residents of Cook.  They feel they are neither liked nor valued in Cook.

6.  Nett Lake residents have been informed that the federal government will pay for a new school of their own - with their own staff, teachers, and construction jobs.

7.  Tower students know they can use “open enrollment” to go to Ely if they prefer.  To add gasoline to the fire, their senior class has been told by the state Department of Education that if they transfer to Ely this fall, they will not be eligible to participate in sports.  This is a particular blow to a few of their student athletes who have been counting on their prospects for athletic scholarships to help pay for college.

8.  If ISD 2142 does not get students from both Tower and Orr/Nett Lake into the new school, property taxes are going up - for the entire district.  This will mean Orr-area residents who do not live on the reservation, and Tower residents whose children and neighbors will be going to Ely, will be looking at increased property taxes.  Those taxes will be going to pay for a school that will be enrolling mostly Cook children.  This is not going to go over very well.

I’ve been a lawyer for more than thirty years, with a neighborhood practice in south Minneapolis.  It’s really just a small town practice in the big city.  I don’t walk on water, and I don’t do miracles.  Mostly, I try to help people avoid mistakes.  If they’ve already made them, then it’s time to focus on minimizing the damage.  And that’s what I see here.  How do we minimize the damage and costs?  Whether or not mistakes have been made, and who made them, isn’t really relevant any more.  The question is, what do we do now? 

Most importantly, the school district needs the cash flow from the state that accompanies each enrolled student.  I suggest using the Internet to reach students in their homes and in small class settings in their communities.  If this could be done three or four days each week, the reduced costs of busing alone would more than pay for the laptops and Internet bandwidth.

There are schools in southeastern Minnesota that provide Internet classes online, at very reasonable prices.  The individual attention and supplemental attention that students require can be provided as needed, for much less total cost.  This will take cooperation and flexibility, but it will offer the chance to lead the way to a solid and useful education for the kids.  And that’s all that counts. 

David K. Porter

Minneapolis, Minn.

ISD 2142, train wreck, David K. Porter