Budget crunch may force Anoka-Hennepin board to close 4-6 schools

The school board is most likely to close four or five schools for next fall.

By NORMAN DRAPER, Star Tribune

Last update: August 25, 2009 - 10:43 PM

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The Anoka-Hennepin school district -- the state's largest -- could close four to six schools next year under a newly released plan. In a worst-case scenario, officials say, eight schools could close over two years.

The Anoka-Hennepin Facility Use Task Force, which has been meeting since April and comprises school district employees, parents and other residents, made its nonbinding recommendations on closures to the school board on Monday. Board members will hold public hearings on the proposals on Sept. 16 and 17. They hope to make decisions on closings for the 2010-11 school year as early as Sept. 28.

The recommendations include five different scenarios, most of which involve closing four to six schools.

Officials have been mulling closures because district enrollment has been dropping at the rate of 500 to 600 students a year, creating an excess of classroom space. Also, money saved by closing schools could be crucial for a district facing a potential $18 million budget shortfall for the 2010-11 school year.

Schools that could be closed under one or more of the scenarios include Riverview Specialty School for Mathematics and Environmental Science in Brooklyn Park, Champlin Elementary School in Champlin, Sandburg Middle School in Anoka, L.O. Jacob Elementary School in Coon Rapids, Sorteberg Elementary School in Coon Rapids, Crooked Lake Elementary School in Andover and Washington Elementary School in Anoka. Different combinations of those schools would be closed under four of the five scenarios, with affected students sent to other schools. There are also recommendations that the Park View Early Childhood Center in Anoka be converted to another use and that the kindergartners currently attending it shift to their home schools.

Depending on which recommendation, or combinations of recommendations, the board decides to adopt, class sizes at the affected schools would rise anywhere from two to four students.

Task force members discussed a fifth option that would involve as many as eight school closings, but did not research it because of the huge effect that would have on students and their families.

Savings and criteria

The task force recommendations didn't specify savings that each scenario would bring for the district. But officials estimate that they can save $500,000 a year per closed elementary school and $1 million per middle school closing.

Among the top criteria considered by the task force in coming up with a short list of schools were costs of operation, costs to maintain and renovate, the potential to reuse the building, and transportation costs.

School board Chairman Tom Heidemann stressed that the board doesn't have to follow the committee's recommendations, but said it is likely to focus on closing four to five schools. He also said the board would not stop at the five scenarios presented by the committee and would look at 16 scenarios the task force discussed earlier in its deliberations.

"Our plan is to take all those options to the public hearings so the public has an opportunity to weigh in on them," he said. Plus, he said, the board is open to new suggestions.

"We're looking for new pieces of information that might not have been considered yet."

Heidemann said it was unlikely the board would consider closing no schools at all. He warned that an "economic tsunami" option -- the one calling for eight closings -- remains a possibility later on, if voters in November turn down a district referendum request to renew a $6 million-a-year property tax levy, and if a teacher contract settlement turns out to be costlier than expected. If that perfect storm of economic woes were to occur, Heidemann said, the board would have to alter its plans, possibly closing eight elementary schools in two phases, in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. The district has 31 elementary schools.

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547