Duluth school district shifting Red Plan money

By Jana Hollingsworth

June 23, 2010 at 11:00 PM

About $11.6 million in changes to the Red Plan are up for approval today by the Duluth School Board.

The changes, resulting from a series of revisions to the $296 million long-range building plan, will allow the district to shuffle money around by switching the location of vocation education, scrapping a new transportation building and scaling back repairs to historic Old Central High School.

The Minnesota Department of Education approved the changes in May. School Board approval is needed for changes to the original financing plan, even though the overall cost of the project is unchanged.

Superintendent Keith Dixon said the changes resulted from design revisions and from meetings with the community and requests from the Department of Education, the city and the School Board.

The proposed changes:

A $2.5 million transportation building would be put on hold. About $211,000 had been spent on its design, but the rest of the money would be redirected. The plans would be used later.

The Secondary Technical Center, which was to be remodeled and expanded for about $5.1 million, will be sold. Money meant for that project would go toward Denfeld and East for remodeling and new construction to create technical education programs at both high schools. That would eliminate the need for students to drive to and from the center and lose an hour of study.

Historical Old Central, which houses the district's administrative staff, was set for about $6.4 million in repairs. Only about $2.2 million will remain for preservation and safety work.

The new East High School at the former Ordean site would get about $1.5 million to buy property for staff parking and to build space for technical education.

Denfeld High School would get about $4.2 million more for property acquisition and space for technical education. The additional property, made available when some businesses closed, was thought to improve the overall site.

The combined Grant/Nettleton elementary school at the Grant site would receive about $2.2 million more. New designs were formed after the district saw it needed more space for special education and Head Start, a new media center and the demolition of the old gym.

Lester Park Elementary is up for $346,174 more because the eight properties the district is acquiring for the site cost more than planned.

Laura MacArthur Elementary needs more property than planned, after an amended design showed the need to combine already-acquired land with Memorial Park and the vacation of Elinor Street between district property and the park. Expanded special education and Head Start space also is needed. The increase to the school project would be about $1.9 million. Board member Gary Glass said the board should have been presented the amendments before they were sent to the state for approval. What was ultimately approved by the state was sent in January, but the first round of amendments were sent in July 2009, he said, and the board never knew what those were.

"These are major revisions to the overall plan that, in my opinion, the School Board wasn't given copies of and did not know about, and now we're playing catch-up," he said.

Building services director Kerry Leider said the state demanded changes to the amendments sent last year and the new set of proposed changes wasn't approved until late May.

By Jana Hollingsworth

Duluth school district shifting Red Plan money

About $11.6 million in changes to the Red Plan are up for approval today by the Duluth School Board. The changes, resulting from a series of revisions to the $296 million long-range building plan, will allow the district to shuffle money around b...