Below are answers to the most frequently asked questions about the Long Range Facilities Plan. If you do not see the answer to your question, visit our Ask a Question page to submit your own.
How did the community participate in creation of the Facilities Plan?
Duluth residents joined the School Board in a comprehensive planning process prior to selection of the Long Range Facilities Plan. This process included over 120 meetings with community groups and organizations, 12 community-wide gatherings, hundreds of emails, phone calls, faxes, regular mailings, and individual meetings to gather questions, feedback, concerns and ideas about how best to address the challenges facing Duluth Public Schools. Once several proposals were drafted, a new round of community meetings and a district-wide scientific opinion survey followed.
Through this extensive community planning process, most Duluth residents agreed on a series of core principles:
- Duluth Schools provide a quality education, thanks to great teachers and a supportive community. But Duluth has been changing, and with those changes have come reduced student enrollment and a need for fewer classrooms and facilities.
- Too many schools were built three or four generations ago. They no longer had the facilities to provide the modern education our students need, and some of them were declared nearly obsolete by state education experts. Schools needed to be brought up to code, made as safe and secure as possible, provide better computer equipment and science labs, and meet state-of-the-art environmental standards.
- There was a need to both close some schools and upgrade others. The best way to approach this was with one thoughtful plan – not doing a little bit here and a little there without a comprehensive vision for the future.