Would the first step be to see how much office space Minneapolis is still renting? Then see what we've got open that we own?
For example, there was a special school at Franklin and Nicollet for a while in some sort of an office building. The kids attended class together but were given credit for being South High students. Does this sort of situation still exist thre or elsewhere? If so, it might be worth just walking away from the leases to cut facilities expenses--pay the rent and ask the owners to look for new tenants. Then we'd be free to find another place for the school in a building already owned by the city. Back to St. Anthony Main, perhaps?
One of my son's friends attended school (7th grade and on) in the St. Anthony Main building. Their school was Marcy, but school was held in the Tuttle School building, temporarily known as Tuttle-Marcy. It is very possible (and has some surprising benefits) to have two organizations under the same roof, be they in the same "industry" or not.
They could be municipal organizations coupled with MPS organizations, couldn't they? They certainly have been in the past.
Second item about change: please do a cost benefits analysis as requested by Don Frasier for the Pratt closing (in the S'Trib opinion piece) before embarking on grand and sweeping changes. publish that in the paper too, please.
Third: If the School Board is going to cut soap from the budget as they've already cut Kleenex and art supplies, please list the cuts in the paper. I bought a dozen boxes of Kleenex to my children's schools while they were pupils in MPS. I am still saving miscellaneous art supplies, but if I know the schools are still short of Kleenex (or green soap or toilet paper or whatever) I can go back to buying that also. I'd rather have a shopping list in hand, however.
Fourth: It would be nice if we tried making the same cuts from the municipal budget that the schools have to cut. If there is no kleenex/hand soap/copier paper in the schools, let's cut it from the city budget, also. This is probably an "in my dreams" item; I realize that.
(For now, I'll continue to purchase or beg for the elementary schools: Yarn from the church rummage sale bag day--check. Magazines to cut up for art supplies--check. Oatmeal boxes--check. Spice jars with the little sprinkler tops--got 'em. Kleenex, soap (?) yadda.)
Emilie Quast
SE Como
REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
