If the St. Paul school board votes next week to close several schools in response to declining enrollment, what happens next in those buildings could turn on the whims of two U.S. senators and a Hennepin County judge.
Superintendent Joe Gothard’s consolidation plan, Envision SPPS, seeks to create schools with enough students and funding to offer a well-rounded education, with field trips, science and arts specialists, counselors and nurses. To do so, he’s proposed clearing students out of eight school buildings next fall.
Whether the schools reopen anytime soon could depend on both legislation and litigation.
Democrats in Congress are working on a wide-ranging bill that would, among other things, provide full government funding for preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds. Without support from Republicans, though, Democratic leaders still need to persuade Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to vote for the package.
If it does pass, some 8,000 St. Paul children will be eligible for free preschool — far more than the 1,400 the district already serves through a mix of local and state funding.
“The entire landscape will change,” said Lori Erickson, assistant director in the district’s Office of Early Learning.
MAGNET SCHOOLS
Another peripheral figure who could influence the school district’s plans is Hennepin County District Judge Susan Robiner, who presides over a 6-year-old school desegregation lawsuit, Cruz-Guzman v. State of Minnesota.
In the spring, the state reached a settlement agreement in the case that called for the creation of four new magnet schools in the metro area, at least two of which were to be located in Minneapolis or St. Paul.
State lawmakers never took action on the settlement, however, and the plaintiffs have since asked Robiner to decide the case in their favor. If the judge agrees that the state has violated the Constitution by enabling racial segregation in Twin Cities schools, she could impose any number of remedies, perhaps including magnet schools.
If Robiner rejects the motion for summary judgment, the settlement deal could be presented to the Legislature again next session, bringing the magnet school idea back to the table.
EARLY LEARNING
Whether Congress agrees to pay for more preschool or not, the St. Paul district plans to convert two schools — Galtier Elementary and the lower campus of L’Etoile du Nord French Immersion — into early learning hubs next fall. Galtier would absorb preschool classes from Obama Elementary and the Rondo building.
The concept is to bring together traditional and special-education preschoolers, family development classes and early childhood screening services, all in one building.
Erickson said she was impressed by a visit to a suburban district, where such a “one-stop shop” model was in place.
She said a district work group “highly recommended the movement to the hub model.”
But the congressional Democrats’ preschool plan has district leaders excited, too.
Erickson recently showed school board members a map of 4-year-old children and Parent Aware-rated child care centers in St. Paul. It showed a high concentration of quality care in the wealthier parts of the city, where there were relatively few children, and a low concentration of child care where more and poorer children lived.
If Congress does its part, the district intends to address that imbalance by adding preschools in the central and eastern parts of the city.
“I want you to think about equity,” Erickson said. “The children that are in that child care desert deserve to have quality programming, and that’s what we can bring to the table.”
DESEGREGATION LAWSUIT
Like the legislation in Congress, the judge’s ruling in the Cruz-Guzman lawsuit could come any day. If the plaintiffs win, or if they get lawmakers to agree on the settlement, it could transform school choice in the seven-county metro area.
The settlement agreement, made public in April, contained $63 million in new annual spending by the state.
It would have forced charter schools to follow the same rules as traditional school districts when it comes to working toward racial and economic integration, boosting student achievement and reducing academic disparities.
Schools populated with notably high or low shares of students from disadvantaged neighborhoods would have had to participate in a voluntary student busing program that sought to better balance the demographics in and among city and suburban schools.
And it would have created four new magnet schools, which historically have attracted white, suburban students to urban schools.
“It could potentially have an impact on everything that we do,” Gothard said of the lawsuit.
TEMPORARY CLOSURE?
State law requires school districts to hold a public hearing before they close a school for more than three years.
St. Paul initially wasn’t going to hold a public hearing for Envision SPPS, because it considers the school closures temporary. But the district added a public hearing to its schedule just in case.
If the school board approves the plan Nov. 16, the district will establish stakeholder groups in spring for each of the affected schools to discuss the future of those buildings.
For now, the schools that would be empty next fall with no plan for reuse are LEAP High School and Jackson and John A. Johnson elementaries; Highwood Hills and Wellstone elementaries also would close, but their recreation centers would stay open.
Obama Elementary likely would close next fall, too, only to reopen in 2024 or 2025 following a renovation, when it would absorb J.J. Hill Montessori’s students and that school would close.
The consolidation plans have been criticized by teachers and families who attend the targeted schools, but the prospect of leaving neighborhoods without their gathering places and hubs of activity has inspired pushback, too.
“I’m not comfortable with those schools being closed for a very long time,” board member Jim Vue said at a recent meeting.
Facilities Director Tom Parent said it costs $75,000 to $250,000 a year to maintain the building and grounds of a vacant elementary school — about one-third the cost of an occupied school.
OTHER IDEAS
Beside early learning hubs and magnet schools, one of the empty schools could serve as the physical location for the district’s online school, where staff could work and students could take standardized tests. John A. Johnson, because it has air conditioning, would be used for summer school.
Other ideas on the district’s list include a college and career center and some kind of student service center.
Jackie Turner, the district’s chief operating officer, said there are benefits to holding onto empty schools, too.
They can accommodate another school’s students during construction — reducing the time and cost of the renovation — or because of fire or water damage. Wellstone is likely to fill that role following an upgrade to its mechanical systems.
The district also is leery of shrinking too fast in case enrollment bounces back. It’s hard to find land in St. Paul, Turner said, and it’s a lot cheaper to retrofit an existing building than to build a new one.