More kids than classrooms in South Minneapolis

More families staying in city due to economy, housing market

(Photos by Kristin Prideaux, Argente Photographie)

By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN

After a decade of declining enrollment, Minneapolis Public Schools is experiencing a boom in elementary age students.

To deal with that, the district has proposed reopening Howe or Cooper in fall 2012 or 2013 and adding a $16 million addition onto Lake Nokomis Community School.

The K-8 students at Ramsey Fine Arts Magnet program may move from Ramsey into Folwell School, which is currently closed. Ramsey would then house sixth to eighth graders. The Wellstone international high school at Roosevelt High, which serves newly arriving international learners, may expand its program to include middle school students. This year, Longfellow School reopened to serve teen parents, and is also an early childhood education site. There are no plans to reopen Cooper at this time.

A final decision will be made by the school board after community meetings are held.

In July, the district received block-by-block census data, explained Courtney Cushing Kiernat, Enrollment Planning Project Manager. The number of young children in Minneapolis is increasing, and that puts pressure on its elementary and middle schools.

For years, the district has counted on having the most students in kindergarten and losing some by high school. The district has lost students to private and charter schools, as well as the suburbs, noted Davic Dudycha, enrollment consultant for Minneapolis.

These days fewer parents are sending their children to private schools and more families are staying in the city, according to Dudycha.

“We are very pleased that we’re growing,” said Area B Parent Liaison Kristin Berg Thompson. “This is a good problem to have.”

Minneapolis expects this trend to continue for at least five years.

Dave Holliday views the school district’s actions and planning for the past six years as “ineffective and short-sighted,” particularly as it relates to Howe School. (See related story for more on Howe.)

“Finally, it looks like someone at MPS is actually being a good steward of the district’s money (actually, the tax-payer’s money) and assets,” Holliday added.

It is valid to ask why Minneapolis is embarking on such a shift a few years after closing schools, Cushing Kiernat said.

She explained that a few years ago, the situation was very different than it is today. Enrollment had been steadily declining from a peak in 1999 when there were 48,000 students. In 2008, enrollment had fallen to 32,000 students. The economy was looking good and the housing market was different than it is today. Families were moving out of the city when their children became old enough to attend school.

Projecting enrollment isn’t an exact science. Cushing Kiernat pointed out, “There are so many factors beyond our control.” She added, “We’re really lucky to have the census data now.”

St. Paul Public Schools has also been losing students for the past decade. Its enrollment has decreased about 7,200 students since then, according to Julie Schultz Brown, Director of Communications Marketing & Development. “This year, for the first time in 10 years, we’ve had an increase,” she noted. It is a small increase — 72 students — but the district expects to continue growing gradually in the future.

HIAWATHA AND HOWE

The proposed enrollment strategy for Hiawatha came directly from the community meeting that took place May 31, 2011 at Hiawatha, according to Cushing Kiernat.

Among the suggestions given that evening were: reopen either Howe or Cooper to create a dual K-5 campus with Hiawatha, build onto Lake Nokomis and/or Hiawatha, build a new building on an old site or change the boundaries to relieve pressure at Hiawatha.

Until a community member suggested creating a dual campus with Hiawatha and Howe, the district hadn’t even considered it. “It was an ah-ha moment for us when we heard a community member talking about it,” said Cushing Kiernat.

The district estimates that 134 third, fourth and fifth graders will be affected by this change.

Hiawatha is over capacity so this will provide more space to students there, pointed out Berg Thompson, and will keep students

in the neighborhood. There are four blocks between Hiawatha and Howe.

“Opening an existing building is quicker and less expensive than adding on,” Cushing Kiernat stated. The district does not yet know how much it will cost to reopen Howe.

Howe Elementary School opened in 1927 and has been closed since 2005. “The reuse of the Howe building has been a long and challenging process for the community. The community has expressed concerns around the desire and need for Sanford Athletic fields and the preservation and expansion of the Howe field, as well as the preservation of the Howe building as a community asset,” said Cushing Kiernat.

Howe has 15 classrooms that will be used for third, fourth and fifth graders. Hiawatha will house only the younger grades, PreK to second grade.

Angie McCracken questions why the district didn’t respond to the increase in students sooner. Last year, “there were 31 students in my daughter’s kindergarten class,” she pointed out. McCracken is looking forward to her daughter attending Howe, a school just two blocks from their home.

Charisse Courteau, who has one child in fourth grade at Hiawatha, attended the community meeting on Oct. 13 at Hiawatha because she wanted to know how teachers felt about this proposal. “I was pleased to hear that they are willing to work and are a resilient staff and are willing to go the extra mile for students,” Courteau said.

LAKE NOKOMIS COMMUNITY SCHOOL

The district’s strategic facilities assessment revealed what people at Keewaydin already knew. The school doesn’t match up other middle schools. In terms of need, it was at the top of the list. According to principal Jane Ellis, the $16 million addition at the Keewaydin campus of Lake Nokomis Community School (LNCS) will bring the school up to par with other middle schools in the district. 

“We don’t want anything more or anything less,” stated Ellis.

The gymnasium at Keewaydin, built in 1928, is 48 feet long and only 18 feet high. “It is one-fifth the size of a full-size gym,” Ellis pointed out. Right now, if the school holds an all-school assembly it must use a local church because neither Wenonah nor Keewaydin have a large enough space for the 650 students enrolled at LNCS.

The school classrooms are smaller than other middle-school classrooms in the district. Several teachers don’t have set classrooms, but instead move from place to place, keeping their stuff on rolling carts. “It’s hard on teachers and students,” Ellis said.

“We’re limited by our building.”

A $16 million addition won’t solve all the issues at LCNS, but it’s a start, said Ellis. It will provide another 180 seats in the school for the 2013-14 school year.

Ellis pointed out that the Lake Nokomis Facilities Committee asked the school board for $24 million, which included money for classroom space, technology improvements and a larger multi-use space at Wenonah.

LNCS is a dual campus that was created seven years ago. Wenonah serves kindergarten to third grade and Keewaydin fourth to eighth grade. When the district considered closing Keewaydin and Wenonah and sending students to other schools that had vacancies, the community rallied around these schools and the grassroots effort resulted in a dual campus model, according to Ellis.

She pointed out that because of the lightrail, moving kids back and forth across Hiawatha is a “huge obstacle.”

The Nokomis area has also seen a boom in population that Ellis attributes to having the most affordable houses in the city.

In 2008, there were 913 students in the area served by Lake Nokomis School, according to census data. That number is projected to increase to between 1,100 and 1,200 by 2015. Of those possible students, MPS expects 700 to attend Lake Nokomis, which has a capacity of 600.

Work on an addition would be complete by the summer of 2013, if approved by the school board next month.

Why not move Keewaydin students to another school building that is closed? “The goal of the district is to keep students close to home,” remarked Cushing Kiernat.

Story printed in the November Longfellow/Nokomis Messenger. Click here to view.