We won’t know for sure, until Thursday, how the St. Louis County Planning Commission will act on the ISD 2142 school proposal in Field Township.

But at this point, the plan appears to be in serious trouble and few, if any, members of the school board are holding out much hope that the proposed site will be approved.

Behind the scenes, the jockeying over a Plan B is already well underway— and it’s shaping up as a debate over two equally unsatisfactory options. On the one side is the board faction pushing to reconsider another rural site, located in Gheen, while on the other side, we have board members pushing to relocate the new school to Cook.

Neither option is acceptable, and as is the case with the Field Township location, both would almost certainly leave the district worse off than before, all while forcing a huge and unnecessary financial burden on local taxpayers. That’s why the school district needs to re-examine the very basis of its restructuring plan in the north, and focus its efforts on keeping schools open.

There’s little point in moving the school several miles to the north. All of the same concerns about local impacts, lack of infrastructure, and zoning difficulties that have plagued the Field Township site will be present at the proposed back-up site, near Gheen. Furthermore, moving the school that far to the north will guarantee a sizable exodus of students from the Cook area, an exodus which school districts like Virginia will be more than happy to expedite.

Conversely, moving the proposed school to Cook, would bring a whole new host of problems. Among the biggest is the guaranteed loss of student enrollment from Nett Lake. While the band has been non-committal on the school project so far, they have made one thing perfectly clear—they will not attend school in the city of Cook.

And if, as is likely, Nett Lake develops an alternative, it is almost certain to include many students from the Orr area.

Indeed, were the district to build its new school in Cook, it would likely attract fewer than 450 students. That’s 180 fewer students than Johnson Controls projected, and it blows a nearly $2 million hole in the district’s financial projections.

And taxpayers would justifiably scream bloody murder were the school district to propose building a brand new school, with a $30 million price tag, within a half-mile of an existing school that could be renovated for a tiny fraction of the cost of new. And keep in mind, building a new school on a different site almost certainly means that Cook’s beautiful, multi-million dollar swimming pool winds up in a landfill. If this is really the way ISD 2142 proposes to spend our hard-earned tax dollars, the public should be outraged.

Before making another rash land purchase, in Cook or anywhere else, the school board needs to take a breath, and start listening to the communities involved. Forget this “the people have spoken” nonsense. The people who truly spoke for the communities in the north half spoke loudly and clearly against this plan, because they understood it won’t work for our communities, or our kids.

The school district needs to conduct a truly independent survey in Orr, Cook, and Tower-Soudan to find out where students are likely to be attending should the district follow through on its plans in the north. A survey would likely find that the losses to open enrollment in the north will offset most, if not all, of the savings that Johnson Controls projects to achieve from closing schools in these communities.

If that’s the case, the district needs a new plan, not a new location for a school that leaves the district and students no better off. The fact is, the board isn’t bound by the Dec. 8 referendum if voters approve a new and more sensible plan.

Such a plan should look at renovations of existing schools and at innovative educational delivery methods, the possible use of charter schools, and other alternatives that could serve as a progressive, new model for rural education, not a throwback to the “bigger is better” philosophy that has steadily lost favor in the educational community.

If ISD 2142 isn’t up to that challenge, maybe they should support a division of the district and let communities in the north chart their own course for the future. Communities in the north are up to the challenge.