Duluth at war over future of its schools

DULUTH -- At 31 years old, John Kedrowski is younger than most of the equipment in his physics classroom at Duluth's Denfeld High School.

When he takes students dumpster diving for lab equipment, he says that he can at least show students how to reuse other people's junk.

The facilities at Denfeld, he said, "really limit what you're capable of teaching students. There are only so many times you can roll a ball down a hill and calculate the dynamics before you get bored."

As school districts across Minnesota struggle with finances, the Duluth School District is using a little-known clause in state integration law to undertake an eye-popping $300 million plan to close, renovate or replace all of its schools without going to the community for a vote.

In the year since the school board approved the plan, fights over its cost, the lack of a vote, decaying schools and the possibility that the plan could divide the city between rich and poor have created a civil war in the community.

At meeting after meeting, hundreds of voters have inundated the school board. Superintendent Keith Dixon has been publicly compared to Adolf Hitler. Opponents of the plan have been called bitter, closed-minded and stuck in the past.

"Duluth has a long history of never passing up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity," said resident Nick Lansing. "Our community's nature is to fight louder and harder and meaner after a decision has been made."

Now, a Duluth legislator is stepping into the fray. DFL Rep. Mike Jaros has introduced a bill to allow voters to collect signatures to force a vote. Almost everybody agrees it would kill the plan, which is believed to be the biggest school-building project in state history.

"I hate to do it," said Jaros, who sponsored the original legislation, allowing the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth districts to sell bonds for building projects without a vote. "I believe local officials should be able to make the decisions they were elected to make. But when there is an abuse of legislation and power, I think that somebody else has to step in."

A declining population

The city of Duluth winds like a ribbon along the shore of Lake Superior. From west to east Duluth, low-income housing and industrial buildings give way to Duluth's tourist mecca, Canal Park, then to up-scale historic homes on large lots along the lake.

As the city's population has fallen with the loss of manufacturing jobs over the decades, school district enrollment has gone from more than 23,000 students in 1970 to fewer than 10,000 now. The decline has been met by round after round of school closings. Each one has been contentious, as a passionate and aging Duluth population watches the schools of their childhood shuttered.

"Duluth has gone through some really difficult times," Dixon said. "People used to show me pictures of a billboard that said 'Last person out, turn out the lights.' You've got these long, deep traditions of generation after generation of people who have gone to these schools."

Duluth's new plan will take the district from three to two high schools -- leaving Denfeld and East -- from four to two middle schools and from 11 to nine elementary schools. By closing Duluth Central, it also divides the city between east and west and rich and poor, although changing boundaries could change that.

The opposition is led by a group called Let Duluth Vote, led by Harry Welty, a former school board member. Welty said the plan "sticks in the craw of a heck of a lot of people," and wonders how a plan to close five schools can cost almost $300 million.

"This strips out the last remaining schools in the central part of our school district," he said. "The great irony is that the district is going to divide the community on the basis of its powers to develop an integration plan. That's jaw-dropping."

Paying for the sins of the past

Dixon remembers touring the Duluth schools before he accepted the job. He had to turn sideways to walk through rows of desks. Schools lacked the necessary technology infrastructure. Some weren't handicapped accessible, and they still aren't.

When asked whether that's legal, Dixon doesn't hedge: "No."

Since April 2006, the district and Johnson Controls, the firm managing the plan, have evaluated the schools and made a list of 1,600 "deficiencies," including carpet replacements, heating plant upgrades and masonry repairs. The district also conducted an exhaustive community involvement campaign to get input from a committee, hold information meetings and gauge community reaction.

Duluth district taxpayers pay an average of $250 a year in school property taxes, compared with a state average of $556, according to 2005-06 data from the Minnesota Department of Education.

Duluth's 34-year-old Mayor Don Ness is a fourth-generation graduate of Duluth Central. He won't say "yes" or "no" to the plan, just "not yet." He's worried about the impact closed schools could have on neighborhoods and wanted his young children to attend Central.

"It would break my heart if Central closed," he said.

Leaving for good

As Duluth residents on both sides of the issue watch Jaros' bill navigate the Legislature, they are reminded of what's at stake: the future of education in a community that has valued it, and the vitality of a community that has lost so much in recent decades.

"The mindset out there is that, whatever we had when we were in school, that's OK," said Lansing, who has two children in the district. "And that was OK. But the world is not that world now. Our kids can't go down to the steel mill and get a job, or down to the docks. Our kids are going to have to compete against kids from other parts of the world for jobs that haven't even been invented yet."

In April, Duluth East senior Scott Grindy emotionally told the school board about his disappointment with the state of the schools. When he leaves for college this fall, he said, he's never coming back.

"So, Duluth, I regrettably say -- adieu and farewell," he said, choking up. "Adios. I wish I could stay longer, but with my good conscience, I cannot."

He tore his notes from a spiral notebook, crumpled them in a ball and tossed them in the trash on his way out the door.

Emily Johns • 952-882-9056