Range school woes like canaries in the coal mine

Public schools everywhere face challenges from unfunded federal mandates, tighter state aid and local tax bases that are tapped out. But here on the Iron Range some special circumstances threaten the very existence of two districts, which I think are like canaries in the coal mine for school districts all over the state.

First, in Greenway, the school board lost an appeal over a judgment against the district in favor of the teacher retirees ("Greenway loses appeal of retiree lawsuit," Grand Rapids Herald Review). This will add half a million dollars to the annual costs to the district, which has the dual effect of smothering the district's functionality and ability to consolidate with other districts.

Then, in the St. Louis County schools, teachers and the administration have yet to reach a contract agreement, making this among the last districts in the state to go without one ("Still no progress in teacher talks," Timberjay). The St. Louis County schools are examples of extremely rural schools that consolidated into one administrative district but still can't keep up with costs because of a very small population and a very rural coverage area that requires massive bus fleets and lakes of gasoline.

You can ignore these problems if you want. After all, only a tiny, tiny portion of the state's population are affected. But I truly believe these examples are, to reemphasize my cliche, canaries in the coal mine. There will be other schools squeezed next year and the year after. The 20 years of shifting away from a state-funded education system to a local-funded one will choke out schools in poor and rural areas and create a two-class educational system that is positively un-Minnesotan.

Range school district deeply divided after failed referendum

I've been following the Greenway school district's financial woes for a while now. The district posed a major extension of three excess operational levies to keep its budget afloat for the next few years. The referendum, opposed by a group touting fiscal responsibility, failed by healthy margin. I argued, and maintain, that this was a survival referendum for the district. Without solving the financial mess involved here this district cannot compete in an open enrollment environment. The board and superintendent aren't publicly acknowledging this reality, but there is a great deal of debate about what to do next.

In today's Hibbing Daily Tribune, by way of the Grand Rapids Herald-Review, Marie Nitke writes a story about people within the Greenway community wanting to create a financial plan for the district before coming back to the community for support. Great idea. It would have been even greater before they ran this latest failed referendum. This district needs help and it's one of several across the Iron Range that will be coming to the existential crossroads before the end of the decade. The 2010 gubernatorial election couldn't have greater implications than they do here in Northeastern Minnesota. The erosion of Wendell Anderson's "Minnesota Miracle" education funding system is killing us.

A divided district

Former hockey coach hopes for healing
Saturday, May 31, 2008 By Marie Nitke

COLERAINE — In a heartfelt plea to the community to unite for the good of Greenway, Pat Guyer, a community leader and former Greenway High School boy’s hockey coach, captured the confusion, mixed emotions, frustration and unyielding spirit of pride that exists among Greenway’s residents today, in the wake of last week’s failed “revoke and replace” levy referendum.

“Through the whole ordeal of the referendum we’ve really become a divided community,” Guyer said at Wednesday’s school board meeting. “Family and friends are divided and not speaking to each other, on harsh terms; children are crying out of fear of the unknown, of what’s going to happen next; kids are saying they’re going to leave and go to other schools; businesses are being boycotted; we hear people accusing people of personal agendas, and probably many more things that I’ve missed.”

This divide progressively widened as the May 20 special election neared and two groups with opposing viewpoints -- one for the referendum and one against -- each campaigned for their causes. Ultimately, the “No” votes overcame the “Yes” votes, and the referendum failed. This means the district will start losing funding as its current referendums phase out, starting in 2009-2010. Now, Guyer says, the people of Greenway need to come together and work through their differences to ensure the school district’s survival.

According to Guyer, the biggest issue Greenway faces right now is a lack of trust: “I believe there is no trust. And because you’re divided, who do you trust? The school board? The Superintendent? The teachers? I believe that that has really been fractured through this whole deal, and that needs to be fixed in some way, shape or form. I do know this -- we do have common ground. In everything I’ve read and everything I’ve heard, in listening to school board members and people in the community, I believe...the people that are here are for Greenway. That’s what I hear ringing loud and clear. We all agree that we need a referendum at some point. We differ on when we want or need it, but we all want it at some point.”

Getting past the differences in opinion, Guyer admitted, will be tough. But he said the Greenway School District will survive as long as the school administration, school board, teachers, and community members of all ages and from all across the Greenway footprint are working on solutions together, sharing ideas and coming up with a solid plan for Greenway’s future. He proposed the formation of a committee, called “Greenway Now and Forever,” which would meet regularly to do just this.

Guyer said he’d like the committee, with the help of Business Manager Ben Hawkins, to come up with two 3-year financial plans for Greenway. One plan would include referendum dollars, in case a future referendum were held and passed, and one plan that would include no referendum dollars whatsoever. He said the committee would also have to address the teacher retiree lawsuits currently in litigation.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the teacher lawsuit,” he said. “I understand that and I’ve been told that. But you need a plan in place if it goes one way or if it goes the other way. We can’t get caught saying, ‘Ahh! What do we do?’ I’m not saying there’s not a plan in place, but that the public doesn’t know about it. It’s not something that you can grab and touch, and I think that’s the frustration of everybody that’s involved.”

In the end, Guyer said: “We can make something happen or we can wait for something to happen. I think that only with the unification of thoughts, ideas and practices from our whole community will we make a difference here. The words ‘pride’ and ‘care’ are only words -- unless you put them into action. And we can use pride and we can use care, put them into action, do it together, and we’ll find out what Greenway’s really made of. Because I know it’s time to become part of the solution. We need to find a way to get there and get everybody to the table and do that. It’s the only way we’re going to survive.”

At the end of the meeting, Superintendent Rochelle VanDenHeuval agreed with Guyer’s statements, saying, “We need to try to bring this community together... and decide, ‘What is our plan?’” She said a committee will be formed this summer.

Marie Nitke is a staff writer for the Grand Rapids Herald-Review, a Superior Publishing Corporation newspaper.

I expect another referendum in the fall, but need to see all of the above happen before I'll have any optimism about its passage.

Critical Greenway referendum fails

Greenway's referendum failed after Tuesday's votes were counted. My information comes second hand from someone in administration. I don't have vote totals, but what I heard was the measure failed by about 200 votes out of about 1800 -- roughly a ten-point defeat.

(UPDATE: From the May 21 Grand Rapids Herald-Review, referendum fails 1170-898. That's a 272 vote spread or about 56.5 percent to 43.5 percent ... not especially close)

This pivotal referendum would have combined and extended three existing excess levy referendums for the Greenway school district on the western Iron Range. The district is in massive debt and is facing a defeat in an important lawsuit with one of its bargaining units that will further deepen the district's financial woes.

The word was that the district would try again in the fall, but I seriously doubt that the outcome will change. The district has survived off operating levies for years as declining enrollment, skyrocketing legacy costs and some poor long-range planning savaged the dwindling budget. Unless given a iron-clad long term plan to A) get out of debt, and B) return the district to its past level of quality, I doubt voters are going to change their minds. It's very sad to say, but the district's only legitimate choice now is to find a way to cover the debt while entering into some kind of consolidation with Grand Rapids or Nashwauk-Keewatin. There are efforts underway to build a new school for N-K, so this might be the perfect time to talk about ways for Greenway to get involved.

I'm never happy to see hard times for schools. As a teacher myself, this is tragic to watch. But absent a solid long range plan, Greenway's leaders need to face the fact that they probably aren't going to be able to pass a referendum in the fall.

Meantime, everyone in northern Minnesota needs to be worried about the long range health of their school districts. Greenway has some special problems, but most of their problems are shared by everyone on the Range. Wise planning is the only way districts will survive declining enrollment. And all this simply underscores the fact that large, "proposed" jobs projects that might bring new families with students mean nothing when reality requires actual economic activity. Let's take this as a rallying call to modernize our thinking and fight for the Iron Range.

Today's vote has Range school district on the ropes

Today there's a levy referendum for the Greenway School District on the western end of the Mesabi Iron Range. If you're not from the Range, this is one of the schools who used to kick your school's ass in hockey. Part of the reason they haven't been kicking your ass lately (I'm talking about you, St. Thomas Academy!) is a deep, systemic budgetary crisis that has lasted more than a decade. Greenway has been in operating debt for that time, as legacy and operating costs skyrocketed while enrollment dropped in this largely rural, Iron Range district. The result has been drastically cut electives, bare-bone curriculum and an almost complete dependence on excess levy referendums to survive.

The Grand Rapids Herald-Review ran a great backgrounder on Sunday.

Many Iron Range school districts share some of Greenway's problems -- declining enrollment, increasing transportation costs, legacy expenses, etc. -- but Greenway is by far the worst off and in many ways emblematic of the problem. Greenway has the added trouble of losing a major lawsuit with its unions over contract issues. The district is trying to separate the matters of the operating levy and the lawsuit, but the two issues each have a hand in strangling the district's budget.

The referendum today takes three referendums set to expire over the next three years and combines and extends them into the future. Those for and against the levy passing don't say it explicitly, but this is a survival referendum for Greenway. If this loses, you will probably see this storied Range school district forced into dissolution and merger with one or more neighboring districts. That said, the district has shown major management problems in the past that has given the voters of today few options. I don't know that the levy's passage or defeat can be declared a victory for anyone. Greenway faces major challenges either way. It's the kind of muddled mess that signifies the budget problems Iron Range districts face because of lost students and the past practice of granting contracts favorable to teachers.

I know those who live or grew up in the rural farming areas of Minnesota have little sympathy because your schools went through major consolidations two or more decades ago. Range schools would have been wise to consolidate strategically over the years as well, but forced consolidation is never as good as planned mergers. Furthermore, whether we're talking about Greenway or any school on the Range, we're talking about places that lifted working class kids out of poverty or near poverty and sent them off to be doctors, lawyers, and professionals of all types. Schools mean upward mobility on the Iron Range. Historically, our northern schools have been better than average and received vast support from local voters. It's just part of our culture. The hardest part about the financial collapse of our Iron Range schools is watching great schools become average and knowing that there's very little that can be done about it under the current administration. Art, music, advanced coursework and much more have been chopped away, leaving students with higher aspirations disappointed and sometimes angry. Students without higher aspirations simply go without aspirations, which is a greater tragedy.

So if you need something else to watch besides today's presidential primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, check on the situation in Greenway. I know Iron Range educators will be watching closely, because what happens in Greenway could happen in many Range districts within the decade.

How are things where you are?

Fate of Iron Range school district hangs in the balance

Education remains one of the top political issues (and largest portion of the state budget) in Minnesota. But on the Iron Range, education takes on special importance. Here's why:

1) As a blue-collar region with an immigrant history, quality public education has been the #1 priority for the Iron Range for about a century. It has been the reason five generations of poor kids have achieved upward social mobility when that seldom occurs in other similar socioeconomic regions. This place is living proof that public education, when applied aggressively, is the great social equalizer and can sustain a population even during hard economic times. As a region, the Iron Range should have been dead fifty years ago. Don't get me wrong, we've come close. But we're still here. Education, baby.

2) All but a handful of schools in northern Minnesota suffer from declining enrollment. We have known nothing but budget cuts, reduced extra curricular offerings, reduced electives and advanced courses, and increased class sizes for a generation.

3) As a result of these factors, and some overspending and generous contracts in years past (though I'll not criticize fair teacher pay or adequate staffing), many Iron Range school districts are now in rough financial shape. In fact, among a list of state local government units in the worst financial shape, Range school districts dominate the top ten ... mostly because there is not much property tax base to levy, there are fewer students every year, and the mining revenue that had once boosted us has become sketchy and unpredictable over the years.

Today, an important meeting will shape the future of one Range district. Greenway schools serve Bovey, Coleraine and other small towns on the western edge of the Mesabi Iron Range. The district is in Statutory Operating Debt and faces the expiration of several major bonding levies all within the next few years. Maybe you've heard of districts seeking operational levies in your part of the state? Well, Greenway is going to be staging a bond issue that will determine whether or not the district will survive. If this one fails, they will be done for.

From Britta Arendt's story in the Sunday Grand Rapids Herald-Review (reprinted across the Range in the Hibbing and Mesabi newspapers):

At a meeting with Greenway staff on Thursday, Superintendent Rochelle VanDenHeuvel said that, without referendum dollars, severe budget cuts would be necessary. She said it’s probable that elective courses at the middle and high school would be eliminated; all day/every day kindergarten would be eliminated; all extra-curricular activities would be eliminated; up to 20 staff positions would be eliminated; administration would be reduced; class sizes would rise as high as 45 at the middle and high school and 35 in the elementary school, and; the school board would need to consider cooperation or consolidation with other school districts, or dissolution of the Greenway School District.

There are several special factors that put Greenway in its current condition, among them a labor lawsuit that they lost to their bargaining units and poor management in the past. But their financial state is only a little worse than other districts, and if the state does not address the erosion of Wendell Anderson's "Minnesota Miracle" that ensured equal, quality education for every Minnesotan regardless of geographic location, there will be more districts facing this fate.

And yes, consolidation is an option, one that I have advocated for other districts in the past. But at some point, transportation costs and community health will be compromised if we don't draw a line and fight for our local schools.

A community meeting to discuss the referendum further will be held in the Greenway High School Auditorium at 5 p.m. Monday.