The Lakeville School District should start a schoolwide magnet program at Oak Hills Elementary, a group of teachers and staff members told the school board Tuesday night.
The group, charged by the school board with designing the program, advised the district to transform the school into a math and science magnet in the fall of 2010.
The board is slated to vote on the proposal in mid-April, when the district must submit a budget to the Minnesota Department of Education for state funding that would go toward planning the magnet school. That time line felt rushed to some board members, who asked for an extra meeting before then to talk about the proposal before making a decision.
The magnet proposal, which comes on the heels of work done by a different task force of district staff members and parents, would be part of an integration effort between Lakeville and the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district.
Students of color make up 35 percent of Burnsville-Eagan-Savage classrooms, compared with 12 percent in Lakeville. That makes the more diverse district "racially isolated" under state law, which requires neighboring districts with a difference of 20 percentage points or more in their minority populations to find more ways for their students to interact voluntarily.
The state provides 70 percent of integration funds, with a 30 percent match from local taxpayers. The money must be spent on new desegregation projects, rather than paying for things the districts already do, said Todd Olson, the Lakeville district's integration and equity coordinator.
But "with all the cuts we're making, the public's not going to understand," said board member Michelle Volk, referring to $6 million in cuts that the district recently approved for next year's budget. "They're going to go ballistic on a magnet school."
Integration funds would cover the cost of starting the magnet program, which would include teacher training, supplies and four to five classroom teachers, Olson said.
