School Board Vote Tonight - Maybe - -

At the last Duluth School Board meeting a vote was to be taken to pass a plan for the future of our schools. The vote was held off for more information. The board has it’s meeting tonight, and it sounds as if they will be voting on whether to accept “The Red Plan”, (which I wrote about in previous postings.) This plan will close a school building, (Central) and the plan’s projected price tag is $275 million. The decision will be whether to accept it, and also decide if there will be a public referendum.

Sunday’s editorial page in the News Tribune, had an article about the boundaries being changed if the red plan is accepted. People are critical of the red plan due to economic and racial disparities between the east and west high schools. There is an innovative idea of splitting the city left and right instead of east and west with the boundaries. By doing this, the schools would be more balanced. If they vote tonight to pass the red plan, boundaries won’t be defined, but the left/right will be considered and details to be worked out later. (I’m still surprised that we haven’t heard much from the parents of Central, which is the school that will be closed with this plan)!

I haven’t been fond of the “Red Plan”, as you may have noticed, but it is mainly because of the economic/racial aspect that I am opposed to it. However, if they change the boundaries so that the gap is dramatically closed, and each school would have an enrollment of 1500, as stated in the article on Sunday, then I would accept that.

I think everyone’s hope is that at least a vote be taken tonight to get the process rolling, so that action is taken. We can’t continue to procrastinate over this issue, as the headline on the editorial page of today’s paper says “Time for School Board to vote, not delay”.