St. Paul: A bid to lure students back to public schools

An ambitious plan to remake several St. Paul schools -- including expanding two hugely popular elementary schools into neighboring junior highs -- moved along this week when a committee of the St. Paul school board recommended several changes.

Acting as the Committee of the Board, the board voted Tuesday to expand Farnsworth Aerospace Magnet Elementary into the nearby Cleveland Junior High to form a combined K-8 program, voted to expand the popular Linwood A-Plus Elementary arts school into the nearby Monroe Community School to form another K-8 program, and approved creating the city's first Hmong magnet school at Phalen Lake Elementary.

The board also voted to change the program at Homecroft Elementary from a neighborhood K-6 school to a home for special education and alternative learning programs for students in grades 7-12. The move would essentially close Homecroft as an elementary school and send its students to other schools. Homecroft has struggled for years with low enrollment and persistently low student achievement.

"My concern is the suddenness of the death of this school," said board member John Brodrick of a plan announced to the community last week.

But Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said changes at several schools, especially those that have struggled with low achievement, have been discussed since February. Moving Homecroft's elementary students into other schools where they can be more successful is a goal, she said. So is placing a handful of scattered special education and alternative programs in a building with better facilities.

Responding to concerns about mixing special education and alternative programs at Homecroft, Carstarphen said the school will not be a "dumping ground" and it will not be dangerous.

"I won't make decisions based on other people's insecurities, prejudices and fears," she said. "This is a way to right two wrongs."

To absorb the displaced Homecroft students, the board recommended redrawing attendance boundaries for Horace Mann and Groveland elementaries. Also, a bilingual program will be moved to Wellstone Elementary and a language academy will move to Groveland.

The board will vote on its recommendations Dec. 18. Officials want to get the changes into the school choice catalog, which goes to press Dec. 21. Board members urged Carstarphen, her staff and officials at the individual schools to hammer out details -- such as school names, leadership, curriculum and staffing -- between now and the end of the school year.

That should also include helping Homecroft families deal with the loss of a longtime neighborhood school, board members said. "We are taking away their school," said board member Anne Carroll. "We're not just reorganizing. They can't go there anymore."

A major reason for all this work, Carstarphen said, is to beef up what the school district is doing well and to reinvigorate schools that have repeatedly stumbled. Currently, about 5,000 St. Paul children attend districts other than St. Paul -- most go to charter schools in the city. These moves are in response to parent demands for expanded choices, she said.

For instance, Hmong parents for years have pushed St. Paul to provide programs that focuses on their language and culture while also helping their children succeed academically. While the district started a language and culture program several years ago at Phalen Lake, a neighborhood school with almost no busing, it now is pitching a magnet program that would provide busing to families living east of Interstate 35E.

"The kids who are Hmong in that area are going to charter schools," Carstarphen said. "We want them back."

James Walsh • 651-298-1541