Anoka-Hennepin must vote again to close schools

The Anoka-Hennepin school board will have to decide again whether to close five elementary schools, a middle school, a kindergarten center and an early childhood center.

The board voted last month to close the facilities, but the district missed a requirement: It failed to publish legal notices of public meetings that preceded the vote. As a result, the board will have to hold another public meeting on the matter next month, then take another vote on the proposed closings.

"It will basically be another vote of the board, yes," board Chairman Tom Heidemann said Monday.

Parents of students at Riverview Specialty School for Math and Environmental Science, in Brooklyn Park, brought the oversight to the board's attention. Riverview was one of the schools targeted for closing, and parents had been outspoken in their efforts to keep it open. Sue Schmitz, a spokeswoman for Riverview parents, said they had been hunting for ways to keep a lifeline going to Riverview and came upon the state law on legal notification during their research.

"One person found the state statute, then we all searched and searched for the notice, and another one wrote the letter [to the district]," Schmitz said.

District spokeswoman Mary Olson said the district had sent out numerous announcements of the public meetings through various means but neglected the legal notification, which had to be published in the community newspapers serving Anoka-Hennepin residents before the meetings.

"I would say it was an oversight and miscommunication within our staff," Heidemann said.

District officials have scheduled the new public meeting on school closings for 7 p.m. Nov. 18 at Blaine High School.

Heidemann said that, should voters turn down an $8 million-a-year tax levy request next Tuesday, the meeting also will be used to determine another school to close. Officials say the closings will save $3.1 million a year at a time when the district is facing enormous deficits and declining enrollments that are leaving many classrooms empty or underused.

The board is then expected to take its repeat action on school closings at its Nov. 23 meeting.

In addition to Riverview, schools that the board voted to close last month were: Champlin Elementary School in Champlin; Sorteberg Elementary School and L.O. Jacob Elementary School in Coon Rapids, and Washington Elementary School and Sandburg Middle School in Anoka. Also targeted were Peter Enich Kindergarten Center in Anoka and Park View Early Childhood Center in Champlin. The board vote called for Park View to reopen in 2010-11 as an elementary school and for Washington Elementary to reopen the same year as a sixth-grade campus for middle school students. The other schools were to close at the end of the current school year.

Schmitz said Riverview supporters are hoping the nullification of last month's board decision will breathe new life into the school's survival prospects.

"We have a very slim chance," she said. "But we have more of a chance today than we did last week at this time."

Riverview parents argue that the school shouldn't be closed for several reasons, including state test scores that place its students among the best in the district, and its proximity to the Mississippi River, which allows students to walk to the nearby Coon Rapids dam and study the river firsthand.

Board members considered a number of criteria -- including the cost of operating a school, building capacity and transportation costs -- in selecting schools for closure. Heidemann said Riverview, in particular, was chosen because students there and at Champlin Elementary could be moved to a new location with a minimum of disruption to other students who might be affected by school boundary changes.

Heidemann said it would take a lot to get the board to alter its September decision when it votes again next month.

"I would say that it would be a fairly low probability that it could change," he said. "But you can't say for sure until you see what new information comes forward."

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547