Osseo parents speak passionately about school closures

As snow snarled roadways outside, about 450 people gathered Thursday evening to ask questions, offer suggestions and vent their feelings at a hearing on the closure of two elementary schools, part of an Osseo School District plan to make up a $16.3 million shortfall.

Some parents at the meeting at the Osseo Senior High auditorium spoke passionately in defense of their schools. Others noted with regret that it would be irresponsible not to close schools given the current budget crisis.

Several also decried some of the racially tinged debate over the recommended action..

James Burgett, who identified himself as a taxpayer, voter and parent of three children, asked why enrollment is flat at a time when population in the district is growing dramatically.

"The only logical explanation is there's something wrong with our school district, some need that we're not fulfilling as parents, as a school board, as superintendent," he said. "Something is wrong we need to fix. We don't fix that by closing schools and casting a blind eye to the future."

A parent who identified herself only as Colette said that if necessary cuts and closings had been made years ago, the district would have amassed huge savings and been spared painful cuts now.

"I pray that the mistakes of the past do not impact on this current decisionmaking process," she said.

In November, the district asked taxpayers to approve a three-part levy, which would accompany a laundry list of budget reductions. Voters approved only one question, leaving the district more than $16 million in the hole for next year.

The district hired TeamWorks International of White Bear Lake, which had taken on similar school reorganization projects in Wayzata, Edina, Hopkins and other districts. The TeamWorks proposal reflected the district's attempt to save money and make better use of district resources by:

• Closing Osseo Elementary School.

• Closing Brooklyn Park's Edgewood Elementary School and relocating its science and math magnet to Weaver Lake Elementary School in Maple Grove.

• Reconfiguring K-6 schools Cedar Island Elementary in Maple Grove and Fair Oaks in Brooklyn Park as K-3 schools.

The resulting displacement of students also will require the redrawing of school boundaries.

An overflow crowd turned out for a school board meeting on Feb. 6, where impassioned groups of parents spoke in defense of their neighborhood schools.

Thursday's hearing focused on the plan to close Osseo and Edgewood elementaries.

Don Pascoe, the district's assessment director, walked the crowd at the hearing through the consultants' decisionmaking process, looking at the cost of running each school, its immediate and long-term capital needs, the capacity of adjacent schools, the impact on changing transportation costs as walkers are bused to other schools, and whether a closure would make remaining schools racially isolated.

With those considerations in mind, he said, the advantages of closing the two elementaries became apparent.