Continued: Final verse for beloved Sandburg Middle School

Sandburg Middle School's golden anniversary this year was also its last.

The 50-year-old Golden Valley school, dedicated by aging poet and historian Carl Sandburg himself in January 1960, falls victim this year to a shrinking student population that requires less space and more savings.

Next year, its students will scatter to the Robbinsdale School District's other two middle schools -- Robbinsdale and Plymouth -- and the staff even farther afield, to the other middle schools and New Hope's Cooper High School, elementary schools and even schools abroad.

The building won't go away. Plans call for it to house district special education, early-childhood education and community education programs next year.

Sandburg joins a lengthening list of schools being closed to regular classroom activity because they're too inefficient to operate in an era when school boards must scrimp every dime. In the case of the Robbinsdale district, enrollment has been in a freefall, from 28,000 in 1971 to 12,000 this year. The number of schools has shrunk too, from 31 in 1971 to next year's 14.

That doesn't make the loss any less galling for students, parents and teachers.

"We have just been grieving from the time they first talked about closing [Sandburg]," said counselor Katie Burkholder, who has been at Sandburg 18 years. "It was a huge shock, because we didn't see it coming at all. We have a lot of pride in the building. We have a great parent group that works and helps us as a staff. It was just a lot of grieving."

"I feel a loss now because things feel very good in this building," said parent Callista Abide, whose sons Leland and Jackson have already been through Sandburg, and whose other son, Bennett, is a rising eighth-grader who will be transferred to Robbinsdale Middle School next year. "The school fits middle-schoolers very well. It's a one-level school. ... Robbinsdale Middle was designed to be a high school. It has four levels. For parents and kids who have never been in the building, that's daunting."

Closing Sandburg as a regular school, as well as two district elementary schools - Pilgrim Lane in Plymouth and Sunny Hollow in New Hope -- will save the district $2 million a year.

This year's closings are signs of the times. Other Twin Cities school districts are looking at school closings over the next few years, especially since this year's Legislature offered them no funding increases over the next two years.

On Friday, Sandburg was winding down its school year and getting wound up at the same time. Student-planned pep fests featured teacher vs. student basketball games, whipped cream pies in the face for favorite teachers and administrators, locker cleanouts and picnic lunches for the 1,060 students that included hot dogs, pizza, potato chips and soda.

"Everybody gets a pop today," said school administrative intern Shelly Phernetton. "Which is not something we ordinarily promote."

Sandburg Principal Tom Henderlite, on the job since 1990, will move on to a comparable post at Robbinsdale Middle School. Seventy percent of the kids who would ordinarily go to Sandburg will be going with him, as well as half the teachers.

"The kids have been pretty quiet about all their moving," Henderlite said. "Maybe it's because so many of their friends are going, or maybe that's the way kids are in middle school."

But as sixth-graders picnicked outside on the grass and sidewalks and left Sharpie pen scrawlings on the blank pages of their classmates' newly acquired yearbooks, they spoke with fondness of the school they were leaving and irritation at the fact that they have to leave at all.

"I thought this school was better than any school I've ever been in," said 12-year-old Kyle Goldman. "Even my old elementary school."

"It's kind of hard because the school is closing, and my elementary school, Sunny Hollow, closed, and it meant so much to me," said 12-year-old Cassie Henthorne between squeals of friends who had spotted and squished several spiders on the sidewalk.

Back inside, sixth-grade teacher Elizabeth Anderson said she will miss her gigantic bank of windows, with the blinds always pulled up and a locust tree outside to measure the progress of the seasons. "This room, with the morning sun coming through it, I'm really going to miss," she said.

Theater teacher Jeff Redman's sadness comes from watching the staff split up and go its separate ways. One consolation for him, though, is a big auditorium to use at Robbinsdale.

Almost everyone will miss the school song, sung by the teachers at their staff meetings and special events.

Sixth-grade teacher Ted Haugan was a seventh-grader at the school when it opened as Carl Sandburg Junior High. Haugan read Carl Sandburg's dedication address at a bittersweet May 2 celebration honoring the school's 50th anniversary.

"Here's the deal," Haugan said. "It's sad, but that's part of life. When staff and students go to their new schools, they'll find new friends and they'll adjust. But it's sad."

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547