Jack Ryan, Sartell
First, congratulations to Sartell schools and local parents on their phenomenal high-school graduation rate of 99.2 percent. Some 95 percent-plus enter a trade or four-year college. Recently, I moved here from North Carolina’s mountains where the graduation rate was 75 percent. Sartell’s curriculum accommodates both college- and trade-school-bound.
Below are some questions that 6,000 people who did not vote should have asked. The “yes” voters won by 250 votes – 2,283 to 2,032. The education lobby’s advertising blitz for a $106 million, 25-year bond debt, with a $90-million new high school succeeded on the first ballot. Was it necessary?
Sartell’s growth from 13,730 to 17,000 (400 per year) since 2007 was largely driven by aggressively recruiting 3,000 high-paying medical-related jobs away from Minneapolis.
If the district moves the fifth and sixth grades to the elementary schools, the K through 6 and junior high grade numbers would look like this the next 13 years:
1 to 4 yr. olds: (270, 270, 270, 270) census (282, 342, 340, 308) Oak Ridge/Pine Meadow total
Oak Ridge: 137, 144, 139, 145, 184, (170, 154)
Pine Meadow: 116, 126, 136, 137, 158, (170, 154)
Junior High: (0, 0) 312, 273
This reduces junior high from 1,234 to 585 with a growth allowance of 600 throughout the next 20 years.
The existing 17-year grade population of senior high from 2029 back to today is: (270, 270, 270, 270) 253, 270, 275 (282, 342, 340, 308) 312, 273, 329, 291, 298, 244.
By shifting the fifth and sixth grades, and using high-school population out 17 years, a growth of 510 could be accomplished by adding 17 high-school classrooms of 30 students. Then taxpayer’s bond debt-load would be $53 million, not $106 million, reduced by half over 20 years, not 25 years. Graduation rates are highly driven by Sartell parents and would not change. But if “white flight” from St. Cloud schools into Sartell apartment complexes increases, all bets are off.