WestWood Elementary School. Laurie Hartmann / PL News Compass
More details came to light on the Prior Lake-Savage Area School district’s plan to shuffle education buildings as part of the ongoing efforts to tighten its budget.
Dan Powers, director of operation services for the district, and Superintendent Michael Thomas presented a proposed plan to close WestWood Elementary as a neighborhood school and consolidate district facilities during the May 19 PLSAS board work session.
In a letter to staff and families in the district, Thomas outlined the plan, which would move La ola del lago to the vacated WestWood Elementary. In turn, the district would sell the District Services Center building at 4540 Tower Street Southeast and move the staff from that building to LODL’s current home at Grainwood.
Powers discussed what went into the decision to select WestWood Elementary as the school to close. The school has the lowest enrollment of the district and is centrally located, so its current students could move to other nearby schools. It also has enough space to provide room for the possible expansion of La ola del lago, the district’s kindergarten-5th grade Spanish immersion program.
“I asked myself, ‘How can I best utilize this space to expand a program, if we have the chance to, so we can bring in more students?’” Powers said.
Per Powers, the decision to sell the District Services Center and relocate its staff to the LODL location in Grainwood makes the most financial sense. While it can take years to sell a school building, selling the DSC building would be much easier because it is a commercial property located next to a vacant lot which is also for sale. Additionally, since the district’s community education staff is also located at Grainwood, there is the possibility for the DSC staff to split resources.
Thomas said there were multiple factors that lead to the difficult decision to close a school, including the district’s flattening enrollment, state mandate challenges and local revenues. “There’s almost an inevitable situation ahead of us,” Thomas said.
He also said that, despite rumors to the contrary, this move is not retribution against the voters who chose not to support the levy in last November’s election.
“This conversation is by no means any type of way to retaliate against our community for expressing their perspectives at the ballot box,” he said. “This is just a reality of where we’re at.”
Board reaction
The board plans to have further discussion on its options, including this proposal, at its meetings in June, with a final vote at its July 14 meeting.
The district is required to notify the state Department of Education of its intent to close a school by October. In the meantime, PLSAS officials need to finalize its plan and work on redistricting the remaining neighborhood schools.
While the proposed plan was the only one presented Monday night, board members questioned if there should be another option.
Board member Jessica Mason discussed the idea of selling the DSC building as well as an elementary school building.
“We’re not saving enough money this way,” Mason said. “We’ll need to sell a school eventually.”
Powers was with the Burnsville district when it needed to sell off school buildings and said the process can take years.
“Selling a building would give money to cover us for one [school year]… if we could sell it — if,” he said.
Thomas also pointed out the risk of a charter school possibly buying a school building, losing the district more students.
“Selling a school to potentially allow a charter to buy that and then come in and pull even more kids from us wasn’t something that we wanted to do,” he said.
Mason and board member Lisa Atkinson requested the board explore selling both the DSC and an elementary school building. Board chair Dan White asked for a consensus vote amongst the board members, which failed.
“From where I sit, that scenario should be the last straw,” White said. “Because more than likely, in fact, almost certainly, that building will be mothballed and not sold.”