SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Many Saint Paul parents are still in shock after the Saint Paul School District board voted to close six schools over the next two years.
“Oh, I was upset. I was really upset,” Parkway Montessori Middle School parent Terri Thao said. “I mean, we knew the situation. This was the worst-case scenario, what came out.”
Thao has two kids at Parkway Montessori, a sixth-grader and an eighth-grader.
She is also the parent teacher organization (PTO) president.
“Sadly, from day one, the district gave us the enrollment numbers and the intent was to always close Parkway,” Thao said. “We tried very valiantly to save the school, having parents testify, email and call.”
While Parkway parents weren’t able to save their school, parents at Wellstone Elementary mounted a successful attempt to stay off the school district’s closure list.
Parents at the school distributed more than 200 yard signs across the city in an attempt to save the school from a merger.
“I think shuttering schools, it causes a lot of trauma and disruption, and it’s not creative,” Wellstone parent Stephanie Anderson said.
After Wednesday night’s school board vote, five schools are set to close at the end of the 2021-22 school year.
The list includes Galtier Elementary School; Jackson Preparatory Elementary School; John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary; L’Etoile du Nord French Immersion Lower; Parkway Montessori and Community Middle School.
A sixth school, Barack and Michelle Obama Elementary, is set to close at the end of the 2022-23 school year.
According to data provided by the district, the school closures will impact more than 2,000 students, about 7% of the total enrollment.
Thao says the closures will affect about 200 students at Parkway, and she says it will be difficult to transition her sixth-grader to a new school.
“My eighth-grader will be a high school student, so it won’t matter, but my sixth-grader is going to be at a new school and I’ve already had to introduce him to middle school, which was already a rough transition. Now it will have to be another rough transition, which is hard for kids.”
To her knowledge, Thao says Parkway parents will be able to choose where they will send their kids next year.
She says that process could split up a lot of friends and classmates.
She says some parents are already talking about working together to make it as smooth of a transition as possible.
“If they are to be sent to another area middle school, could they go in cohorts? Could they go with classmates so they wouldn’t feel like they’re starting all over?” Thao says.
St. Paul Public Schools officials say some of the buildings will be repurposed for other uses within the district.
In the case of Barack and Michelle Obama Elementary, the school will reopen with a middle school in 2024 or 2025.
At the end of the day, school district officials determined that having fewer school buildings open in St. Paul would allow them to better allocate resources.
“Where we can create capacity in one space, it makes a lot of sense, so we are going to need to be flexible,” said SPPS Superintendent Joe Gothard.
An SPPS spokesperson says the district is currently assessing their staffing situation after the vote Wednesday night to determine what will happen to the teachers and staff at these six schools.