Rochester school district plans to close three schools

Rochester school district officials plan to close three schools and redraw neighborhood attendance maps as part of a streamlining process to cut operating and transportation costs.

District officials on Monday unveiled their proposal, which would include shuttering Pinewood and Riverside Central elementary schools as well as Mighty Oaks Early Learning School. Under the plan, Pinewood and Mighty Oaks would close next summer while Riverside Central would be reconfigured to host students from a nearby school.

Superintendent Kent Pekel said closing schools is "the most difficult recommendation a superintendent can make."

"I don't make that lightly," he said.

Rochester's union contracts have a process in place for teachers to be reassigned or find other jobs within the district, but a district spokesperson said it's too early to tell how many staff members will be affected.

Pekel and district officials will lay out more details in a Rochester school board meeting Tuesday. Officials will hold several public meetings to gather feedback from the community before the board reviews and likely ratifies the plan by the end of January as part of budget discussions for next year.

The district will draw up geographic attendance plans for schools, which would include walking zones close to the buildings with busing routes further out. It plans to drop transportation services for its six previous districtwide option schools, instead forcing parents to find their own transportation while the district saves about $750,000 a year.

At the same time, Rochester would open up enrollment at every school regardless of where students live as long as they find a way to get to class on their own.

Other aspects of the plan include dropping a 45/15 calendar schedule (nine weeks of school followed by three weeks off, along with shortened summer breaks) at Longfellow Elementary School, which would expand to serve kindergarten through eighth grade. The district also plans to expand child care options and programming for students who are new to the U.S. and don't speak English.

The changes address several ongoing issues in Rochester: District officials have discussed increasing transportation costs and contracts during the past year as part of a push to change start times at some schools, while the Rochester school board has discussed switching Longfellow back to a traditional calendar in recent months.

Pekel said cutting down on busing routes makes school start time changes possible. The school board approved a new schedule in June in which elementary school students will start at 8 a.m. instead of 9:25 a.m.

Yet, the biggest driver remains the district's burgeoning budget and its fluctuating enrollment. Pekel noted the 17,000-student district has lost about 700 students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, though enrollment stayed flat this year.

That's enough losses to fill a large elementary or a middle school. Pekel said the district will likely hold onto the closed school buildings as officials forecast enrollment increases with the upcoming Mayo Clinic expansion in downtown Rochester.

"We're not seeing that yet," he said. "In the meantime, we need to make the tough financial decisions, but we don't want to undermine our ability to expand when that need emerges."

Meanwhile, the district is looking to cut at least $10 million from its budget for the 2024-2025 school year.

A recent technology referendum would have shored up part of that budget — the levy would have put $10 million toward equipment, building upgrades and network improvements while freeing up other dollars — but voters narrowly rejected the district's proposal earlier this month.

Pekel said the referendum likely would have helped some of the cuts made under its new attendance plan, but other changes would have happened anyway. Part of the new attendance plan involves creating a middle school-level alternative learning center for students who don't do well in regular classrooms, which Pekel said has become a priority in recent years.