Three Iron Range school districts want to share resources without merging

A group of school districts on Minnesota's Iron Range are considering an unprecedented plan to join forces.

The Virginia, Mountain Iron-Buhl, and Eveleth-Gilbert districts want to build and share a new school for grades 7 to 12, something their leaders say isn't a merger or a consolidation.

By combining resources, the three districts could replace their aging buildings with a modern school, Virginia Superintendent Deron Stender said.

"We're going to be in one state-of-the-art facility, sharing our resources, and hopefully providing more resources toward education and students," Stender said.

Officials from the districts are holding public hearings on the school proposal tonight in Virginia and Wednesday night in Mountain Iron.

The new school, which would be located in Mountain Iron, would cost $102 million. It would enroll about 1,500 students.

To pay for the school, the districts would ask lawmakers to tap into taconite tax revenue.

Under the plan, teachers from the three districts would all keep their jobs, although there could be reductions among other staff.

A joint powers board would oversee the school, but the three districts would keep their own school boards.

They would also keep their own sports teams. That means basketball players who compete against each other on a shared court one night could be biology lab partners the next day.

Stender said that's an important feature of the proposal.

"This allows everybody to retain their identity, to retain that culture that's been developed in their communities and to hold on to that," he said.

Some people fear the new school will pave the way for a future district consolidation. Residents of the Mountain Iron-Buhl district created a Facebook page now filled with concerned comments about replacing small town schools with a new "mega" school.

In recent years, there have been dozens of school consolidations as rural Minnesota districts work to find ways to stay afloat, and offer their students a full curriculum, while facing budget challenges and declining enrollment.

However, in the case of the Virginia, Mountain Iron-Buhl, and Eveleth-Gilbert districts, school officials see enrollment growth in their future, and a main reason to build a new school.

But Fred Nolan, executive director of the Minnesota Rural Education Association, sees the effort as a way for all three districts to provide students with a new state-of-the-art school facility — something they couldn't do on their own.

"It makes sense to me what they're doing," Nolan said. "It's possible to do what they're doing. They just have to meet the expectations and the wishes of their community."