Carlton school board debates long-term plans

And then there were six.

Over the course of a nearly three-hour working session Monday, Carlton School Board members narrowed down a list of possible long-term options for the school district from 10 to six. After a couple months of long meetings with little progress, it was a Herculean achievement.

To start, Carlton board chair LaRae Lehto presented the board with strict rules of engagement, asking that each board member take turns and share his or her top four or five options with minimal explanation initially.

In the process, they nixed the most extreme options, including construction of a new middle/high school at the South Terrace site, regretfully but realistically acknowledging that it is highly unlikely voters would pass such a plan since the last referendum failed by a 70 percent margin. At the other end of the spectrum, they also removed the option of dissolving the school district.

“I don’t see any reason to talk about dissolution,” said Lehto. “We are not in a financial, academic or enrollment place where that need to have that discussion.”

While there was no unanimous vote for any option, two did get five votes and one got four (out of six). The top two choices were consolidation with Cloquet, and maintaining an elementary school (and possibly middle school) at South Terrace while pursuing other options (online, collaboration, consolidation) for the upper grades. Consolidation with Wrenshall “with a facility plan to be determined by the consolidated board” got four votes.

Options to continue without change, or make health and safety improvements (using nonvoter-approved bonding dollars) got zero votes, as did the idea of consolidating and building a single PreK-12 school in Wrenshall.

Following the “lightning round,” board members took more time to discuss each option that did get votes.

Out of those conversations came homework assignments for superintendent Gwen Carman:

• Send a letter to the Cloquet superintendent and school board to ask if they would be interested in discussing consolidation options;

• Talk to the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School about some kind of consolidation options if they’re interested, and find out if it’s even possible to consolidate with a tribal school;

• Resurrect the Carlton school board’s previous resolution to ask the Carlton and Wrenshall communities to vote on consolidation, and see if Wrenshall would be willing to do the same.

However, any option of consolidating with Wrenshall that got support — including a two-site option and single PreK-12 at South Terrace, along with the to-be-determined site idea — is on hold until after the May 14 school referendum vote in Wrenshall.

Carlton County Academy?

All of the board members were enthusiastic about the idea of starting a combined college- and career-readiness academy with one or more school districts in the area, along the lines of secondary academies in Bemidji, Alexandria and Hibbing.

Carman shared a video with the board about the Academies of Alexandria, and explained the idea behind such academies, where students work with real-life problems in a “more action, less pencil learning” environment that aims to better prepare them for future choices, whether that’s college, vocational school or going straight to work.

Carman said she wanted to show the board what was possible before they started their discussions about long-range planning for the district. She added that area school principals and superintendents have been meeting and talking about the future of education, and ways for all the area schools to collaborate more.

“Be positive. This is an exciting time,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of negativity and budget reductions, now it’s time to make decisions about the future, how to expand and grow opportunities for students.

“Long-range planning doesn’t deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”

Board members agreed the academy idea could fit with some of the long-range options, provided other school districts wanted to come on board. It’s also an idea that would take years to develop and costs money and time to do right.

The board will resume the discussion at its June 6 committee of the whole meeting.

“To be continued,” Lehto said as the marathon meeting finally drew to a close, “We’re obviously not done with this conversation.”