The North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school district will study an outside consultant's recommendation to close Maplewood Middle School, reconfigure its elementary schools and move several other affiliated school programs into vacant buildings owned by the district.
Those were among a dozen recommendations offered in a recently release wide-ranging study of the district's facilities and educational adequacy, said Patty Phillips, district superintendent. The study was done by Roger Worner Associates, Inc.
"We're going to study each of these recommendations, probably starting this spring," Phillips said. District officials would have "lots of work" to do before deciding to close any school, and a lot of arrangements to make thereafter in changing boundaries and adjusting transportation, Phillips said.
"We don't want to alarm people because this kind of thing isn't around the corner," said Nancy Livingston, chairwoman of the district's school board.
The root of the school closing recommendation lies in the district's slowly but steadily declining student enrollment. The district has 400 fewer students than it did five years ago, enough to fill a small elementary school. As it shrinks, the district has had to shave its budget. Last week it approved another $1.4 million in cuts for next year.
The facilities study also recommended that the district reconfigure its K-5 elementary schools by breaking them into schools that contain only K-2 or grades 3-5. District officials said the change, already done in some other districts, would help cut costs and even out class sizes.
Both moves would require boundary changes, which tend to be very contentious, Livingston says. "If you ever want to fill up a school board meeting, just announce a boundary change."
The facilities study also recommends saving money by having a sort of traveling principal who could act as principal for more than one school, while having a senior teacher run the buildings when the principal is at other sites.
