Opposing the Blue Plan due to activities..? Read this..

This weekend’s Duluth Budgeteer News brought two articles discussing the “Blue Plan” for Duluth Schools. If you remember, I told you that the “Blue Plan” calls for all three of our high schools to merge into one high school, in the heart of the city, on the present Duluth Central campus. There is a letter to the editor on the opinion page, the writer who now lives in Duluth, grew up in communities in the 70 and 80’s that experienced consolidation. I quote her:
“In the short term, we became a strong athletic force; making it to state tournament in several major sports…we had an even stronger academic program with some of the best teachers around. Our district and community was able to use its money in a more effective way. But, perhaps the biggest benefit is that the change ultimately spurred on a large unification of our community. Instead of rivals from the east and west, people came together to support one community school and team…. I see that there is a much, much greater sense of unity and community pride that exists there now. …Moving towards one high school might be just the unifying factor to start us on the road to a brighter and even better future.

There was also an article from Ralph Doty titled “Single High School Enhances Extracurricular Activities.” He recently talked about a one high school in a town in Ohio that he resided in for 16 years. He had a telephone conversation with the principal there. It serves 2500 students in grades 10 -12. Two years from now, ninth grade students will be included in the school, resulting in a high school of 2,900. (Duluth has 3,300 students in grades 9-12 in three high schools). This school offers 23 varsity sports…more than 1,000 students participate …students who don’t make JV or varsity teams can participate in 15 intramural sports in a wide variety of extracurricular activities. …It’s not a good use of taxpayers’ money to make a decision on whether a school district should have one, two or three high schools, based on varsity sports opportunities for, maybe, several hundred students, (and really that the main reason that people are proposing the two school option.)

As I have said, and these two say also, the red and the white plans will continue Duluth’s racial and cultural divisions at the so-called “point of rocks”. Check out these two articles by logging on to the Budgeteer News web site: http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com
Search for "Ralph Doty" he has two articles about the school plans.