Carlton accepts Wrenshall invite to tour buildings

At the committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, Carlton school board members again took up the issue of consolidation with Wrenshall. Consensus formed around having superintendent Donita Stepan contact Wrenshall and arrange for both boards to tour the buildings of both districts, in response to a letter sent a month ago by the Wrenshall school board.

In August, Carlton agreed to discuss a merger, but only on the basis of having one campus which would have to be at South Terrace, the current site of the Carlton Elementary School.

In their letter dated Sept. 11, Wrenshall acknowledged Carlton’s desire for one site at South Terrace, but argued that prudence dictated looking at all three buildings used by the districts, including the Wrenshall school and Carlton High School.

“While we are open to one campus located at South Terrace, it would be fiscally irresponsible to take all other options off the table without comparing costs and considering how the other two buildings would be used or carefully decommissioned,” read the letter, which was signed by all six members of the Wrenshall board.

Sam Ojibway insisted that only one site would do, and it had to be at South Terrace, but he was willing to tour the other buildings. Eryn Szymczak noted that Wrenshall had not met Carlton’s conditions, but later agreed to examine all three buildings as a way, she said, “of moving a step forward.”

Wrenshall pointed to the success of the sports cooperative between the two schools as an example of the readiness of the organizations to work together. Also, polling in 2019 showed 81 percent of the people in both districts favored consolidation.

“I want to see those buildings,” said Laura Nilsen, who said a consolidation should bring with it other improvements such as a full day care system serving the new school district.

“Carlton has [only] one true day care that has preschool,” she said, a fact that forces many parents to bring their children to Cloquet for the service.

“Then what happens?” she added. “By the time your kids are 5 and go to kindergarten, they want to stay with their friends,” leading to enrollment at Cloquet public schools.

She also thought other uses could be found for the Wrenshall building, perhaps making it into an Area Learning Center or ALC, an alternative school for students who need credit recovery.

“We have a major shortage of alternative education space,” Nilsen said, while noting that the closest ALC was in Cloquet, which she said does not have the capacity to serve the entire county.

Board chair Julianne Emerson observed there was consensus around getting the two boards together, and Stepan resolved to make arrangements.

In other matters, Stepan alerted the board to the possibility of additional revenues from renting more space to Northern Lights Academy (NLA), a cooperative that provides certain special education programs in the region. NLA currently uses facilities at Carlton and Cloquet’s Garfield School, but has asked for additional area to work. Two mostly vacant classrooms could be provided adjacent to the place in the secondary school already used by the group.

Carlton currently takes in around $60,000 in rent from NLA. Depending on what is negotiated, Stepan thinks there is potential to get an additional $15,000 to $20,000 more for space that is now unused except for some storage, which could easily go elsewhere.

Board member Ryan Leonzal wanted to know how the present arrangement with NLA is going.

Upon hearing positive remarks from Stepan, Leonzal said helping NLA was, “Part of being a good neighbor.” No opposition was voiced against providing more space to NLA.