Educating Tower-Soudan

At times, it’s easy to view the glass as more than half full when considering the future of Tower and Soudan. With a new state park campground poised to open next spring and with significant new commercial and residential developments looking increasingly likely around the new harbor and elsewhere, it seems more and more that these are communities poised for growth, maybe even prosperity.

Yet there remains the troubling issue of education, which is always a critical component in any community’s success. As we report this week, Mayor Josh Carlson has called a community meeting for next Thursday, Oct. 27, in hopes of making the case for the local schools, particularly the elementary, where just over half of the community’s young people attend. You might think that in a remote and tightly-knit community like Tower-Soudan, local elementary enrollment would be high, particularly given the fact that the school consistently is among the top performers, based on test data, of any school in the region. Yet for every six kids who attend the Tower-Soudan Elementary, five kids go elsewhere, either through open enrollment or homeschooling. The fact is, there are plenty of students in the community to sustain viable schools. They are just choosing to attend elsewhere. Carlson worries it’s a drain that not only threatens to undermine the community’s fine elementary school, but to undercut years of work on the economic development front as well.

Some of this is undoubtedly the continuing political fallout over the 2009 decision by the St. Louis County School District to close the Tower-Soudan High School. Some parents vowed never to send their children to any of the district’s remaining schools and they opted for neighboring districts, like Virginia, instead. Others opted for homeschooling.

But for a growing number, it does not appear to be a reaction to the district’s unpopular decision. Indeed, a significant number of those Tower-Soudan families choosing to send their elementary-aged children elsewhere, are sending them to other ISD 2142 schools, particularly North Woods.

Sports may be a big part of that. A number of North Woods sports teams have been finding success in recent years, and that’s often a draw for students, maybe even more so for their parents. While the prospect of sports may not be foremost in the minds of most parents of elementary-aged kids, many will take steps to further their sports prospects down the road. And relocating their child ahead of time, where they’ll have the chance to develop friends and catch the eye of coaches long before they ever try out for the team, is one way that parents can hope to give their kids a leg up.

Parents certainly have a right to do what they believe is best for their individual children. And members of their community, like the mayor, certainly have a right, maybe even a responsibility, to point out how those singular decisions by parents, when considered collectively, can undermine their community’s future, and potentially foreclose educational choices and opportunities for their friends and neighbors at the same time.

We don’t know what the magic enrollment number really is for an elementary school in Tower. In part because the school district does receive special tax payments from the creation of the state park, and because the elementary receives a significant amount of what’s known as compensatory aid, it may well be financially viable even with enrollments in the 60s. But that’s not a question anyone should hope to answer anytime soon, since the goal should be to boost student numbers, not see how low they can go.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t just a problem for the elementary. The Vermilion Country Charter School has also experienced limited enrollment since its founding four years ago. The school has come a long way since then, and is showing real academic promise, yet most parents and students in Tower and Soudan have barely given it a look.

For some reason, parents in the community aren’t making the connection between the health and viability of their local schools and their community’s prospects for the future. Hopefully next Thursday’s meeting can begin that discussion.