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 Denfeld High School Class of 1963 - Latest News 07-05-2004 - Auditorium to get a face-lift Posted on Mon, Jul. 05, 2004 Auditorium to get a face-lift DULUTH SCHOOLS:Nearly $1 million in renovations are planned this year for the Denfeld High School auditorium. BY LISA MICHALS NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER Richard Nixon spoke there. Liberace raved about its acoustics. Johnny Cash performed there, too. Every year, hundreds formally graduate from high school on its stage. And according to some accounts, the Denfeld High School auditorium even has a ghost. In the next year, the stately facility will receive nearly $1 million worth of new paint and much-needed repairs to play a more polished host to momentous school and community events for years to come. Repair work will begin after installation of a new roof. That project, under the direction of general contractor Amendola Construction Co., began last summer. Commercial Roofing is the subcontractor. The roof and renovations are part of the district's 10-year facilities improvement plan. Costs will be covered by a combination of state money and money raised through special tax levy authority for school districts having aging facilities, said Kerry Leider, district facilities manager. About $970,000 will pay to repaint the three-story-high, 1,800-seat auditorium and to make extensive repairs to both flat and ornate plaster damaged by water from a leaky roof. It was last painted in the 1970s. "The dimensions of the auditorium, with the height of the ceiling and the sloping floors, make it a difficult job," Leider said. While the project sounds expensive, said Denfeld principal Bill Westholm, it's justified by the history and the tradition of the building, completed in 1926. "You're talking about 77 to 78 years of people in western Duluth," said Denfeld teacher Joe Vukelich, school historian. "For some people out there, that was one of the highlights of their life -- their marriage and their graduation from Denfeld." Denfeld's architects probably would agree. They reportedly directed that no additions ever be built on the auditorium. "It's kind of a snotty way of saying, 'Hands off,' " Vukelich said. Hands off, indeed. That's exactly how students treat the auditorium, Westholm said. "I know when I came here and I was a sophomore, the principal came out and said, 'Look around at this auditorium. You won't see a mark on a single seat because the kids take care of it,' " Westholm said while standing on the stage last week. "I came out here 10 years ago and I caught myself saying the same thing." The hard wooden seats will remain untouched. Padding could interfere with the auditorium's acoustic integrity, Leider said. The renovations will take at least six months. That means the school will have to find temporary venues for some big events -- and possibly the biggest event of all. "If they start it too late in the fall, then we might have to move our graduation," Westholm said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LISA MICHALS covers education. She can be reached at (218) 723-5342 or by e-mail at lmichals@duluthnews.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2004 Duluth News Tribune and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.duluthsuperior.com 07-28-2003 - Almanza proposes closing two high schools: Denfeld and East Tom West Budgeteer News Last Updated: Friday, July 25th, 2003 12:40:41 PM Duluth Superintendent of Schools Julio Almanza proposed Tuesday closing two of the city's three high schools. However, except for one incumbent, there doesn't seem to be much support for the proposal among the candidates running for school board. Most of the candidates said they would like to see two high schools maintained and one closed. Almanza proposed after months of study and input that Denfeld High School and Grant and Chester Park elementary schools be closed next summer, and that East High School be closed no later than 2009-10. The closings have been necessitated by declining enrollment. Almanza proposed the high school closings in order to keep more elementary schools open and to maintain the 6-8 middle school grade configuration. Student enrollment for 2003-04 is projected at 10,779, but that number is expected to fall steadily to 8,749 in 2012-13. The capacity of the district’s buildings as they are used now is 12,288 students. At the high school level, during the coming school year capacity is expected to exceed enrollment by 1,146 students at the district’s three buildings if ninth graders are included. If only grades 10-12 are in the three high schools, capacity exceeds enrollment by 2,191 students. District projections show that if a 10-12 grade configuration is used, the students fill fit into two of the existing buildings beginning this year. Under a 9-12 grade configuration, the enrollment will be above capacity for a two high school set-up until 2007-08. The school district recently cut 72 teachers to cover a $5 million shortfall this year but is facing a shortfall of at least that size next year. The move to close buildings is designed to cut the cost of maintenance and upkeep and use the savings to preserve educational programming. Almanza said that the savings on the closing of one high school would be approximately $1 million annually. Almanza said that the reason for closing only one 9-12 high school first is because a building referendum will have to be approved by voters to expand Central. He said he proposed closing Denfeld first because the geographic center of the student population is now near 21st Avenue East, between Central and East. Almanza cautioned that nothing has been decided yet, and he has made the proposals to keep the discussion moving. However, among the nine school board candidates running in this fall’s elections, only incumbent Robert Mars, Jr. has endorsed the one high school plan. “Duluth would gain in some kind of togetherness if there were one high school,” Mars said. “A two high school plan is divisive for Duluth.” Incumbent Bob Nygaard said that he would be willing to put the one high school plan to a referendum, but that he personally favored maintaining two high schools, East and Denfeld. He thinks that two high schools will offer better co-curricular activities for students. Ann Wasson, who is challenging Nygaard in the 1st District, served on the Vision 2007 steering committee. She thinks more discussion is needed about children falling through the cracks or leaving the district under a one high school plan. She would prefer maintaining three high schools but could support a two high school plan if further analysis of the district’s financial and enrollment numbers warrant it. Judy Seliga-Punyko, who is running against Mars and Mike Akervik for the at-large seat, has been the PTSA Council president for the last two years and also served on the Vision 2007 steering committee. She said she thinks a one high school plan would discourage parent involvement. “I am not in favor of going to one high school,” she said. “(I) absolutely (support) two high schools. That seems to be the most practical.” More specifically, Seliga-Punyko said that she thinks the grade configuration should be changed to 10-12 for the high schools, with 7-9 junior highs that bring back some of the after-school activities that have been dropped in the middle schools. Akervik was unavailable for comment. Tim Grover, who is running unopposed in the 3rd District, said, “I absolutely do not support closing Denfeld.” The one high school plan, “is ill-conceived, ill-presented and very poorly thought out,” he said. “It’s cruel to Denfeld.” He said he would only support a two high school configuration if it included Denfeld and Central. Second District incumbent Harry Welty said that Almanza did what the school board wanted him to do but that he doesn’t support the proposal. He called it “damn near delusional” to think that a $40 million bond referendum could be passed to expand Central under the one high school plan. “The simple thing we can do is turn Central into a junior high school,” he said. “Politically, talking about closing Denfeld is doomed to failure.” Welty said he would close Woodland Middle School instead, and maintain Ordean and Morgan Park middle schools. He has not yet decided whether, under his plan, Lincoln Park would continue to serve grades 6-8. Tom Hustad, who is challenging Welty, said, “I’m not sure Duluth is ready for a one high school concept. I think most people would feel more comfortable with a two high school system.” Hustad said that if previous controversies over the freeway routing, the Lakewalk and the Bayfront are any indication, it will take a long time to change the community’s attitudes toward a one high school plan. “I’m not sure it’s the purpose of the school district to unify the city,” he said. Jim Payne, who is also running in the 2nd District, said that he would close Central and sell off some of the school district’s prime real estate, including the Central Administration Building. “As a taxpayer, I would not give them another nickel.” At Tuesday’s meeting, Almanza presented a time line to the school board that recommends that it adopt a long-range plan that includes one high school at its Aug. 19 meeting. The time line also proposes that a special operating levy referendum be held this November. That vote would be unrelated to the closing of any buildings but would increase property taxes in order to preserve school programming. 07-27-2003 - Keep Denfeld, East open but stir one-school debate Posted on Sun, Jul. 27, 2003 Commentary by TOM BOMAN Keep Denfeld, East open but stir one-school debate Duluth once had four public high schools and a population of 120,000 people young enough that a majority of voters had a direct interest in the public schools. Now the city has about 80,000 residents, the majority of the population having no direct interest in the public schools. Morgan Park High School was closed when the U.S. Steel plant closed down, leaving the far western community without a major employer. Now the Duluth School Board is considering whether it makes good sense to close one or more of the three remaining high schools in an attempt to live with new budget and political realities. It will not be an easy decision. Duluth is a most unusual city. A sage once remarked that Duluth is 30 miles long, a mile wide and a mile high. As the city came to maturity in the early years of the past century the laboring class of people settled close to where the work was, namely, the waterfront and up the river to the west. The business and professional class tended to settle out along the shores of Lake Superior to the east. Each end of town had its own unique political base and interests. Designing a school system for Duluth was fairly straightforward in the city's early days. Every little neighborhood got an elementary school. The first high school went in the center of town to keep the west end and east end people happy. As the city population grew, the western neighborhood political forces lobbied for a high school, and soon, Denfeld High School was a reality. When U.S. Steel Corp. settled Morgan Park as the new steelmaking center, they got their high school, Morgan Park. Eventually the east end of town flexed its political muscles and got a high school, East. And everyone was happy. In the early '60s, Duluth had a superintendent of schools by the name of L.V. "Bud" Rasmussen, an articulate and thoughtful leader. He often commented that running the Duluth schools was fascinating because it had four very different public high schools. There was a typical suburban high school, East; an inner-city high school, Central; a small-town high school, Morgan Park; and a classic, stable blue-collar high school, Denfeld. He never considered consolidating or coordinating the schools because they were so different from each other. Fortunately, he had the enrollment and finances to keep them all healthy and running. Times change. The city demographics have shifted with a marked decline in the proportion of youngsters and an increasing proportion of older residents. There has been a move to build on top of the hill. The major retailing center is no longer the downtown but in the Miller Hill area. There are three contending plans for the Duluth schools for the future. One would maintain the old order by keeping the three high schools, plus do some realigning of grade configuration and close some elementary schools. This plan would keep loyalists to the existing high schools happy but probably not solve budget problems nor provide a new, exciting vision of educational opportunities. Another plan would pick two high schools to survive, probably one in the east and one in the west: East and Denfeld. This plan would avoid antagonizing the east vs. west advocates and avoid major building costs. It would be expected that the old grads from Central High School will be very upset at the prospect of losing their old alma mater, a group that successfully prevented the School Board from closing Central a number of years ago. The third plan would close all three existing high schools, making everyone unhappy but promising to build a new mega high school that would serves the entire school district. The mega high school plan proposes to build a new building that incorporates all the newest ideas in educational philosophy and technology. It would have three or four unique schools of 600-800 students within a common campus, a very workable idea and one in place in some of Minnesota's rapidly growing communities around the Twin Cities. Where might a mega high school be built? Educationally, it requires a very large site with plenty of room for parking and performance facilities. Politically, it has to be in a neutral site. Those requirements almost dictate something on top of the hill, neither east nor west, and where transportation demands can be accommodated. A new single high school for Duluth probably will cost $44 million or more, depending on infrastructure improvements needed to make the idea work. If the school plan is accompanied by an exciting vision for the future of public education in Duluth, residents might be persuaded to foot the bill. But that will take time, a lot of work and remarkable creativity. So what to do in the interim? A likely scenario would be to move to the two high school plan and keep East and Denfeld operating while residents debate the merits of the one high school plan and all the grade reconfigurations that are likely to be proposed in the new vision. Within a year there will be a new mayor for Duluth, a raft of new city councilors and some major new players on the School Board. It should be an exciting time for political and educational junkies to watch the maneuvering and posturing. Hopefully, when the dust settles, whatever happens will be good for the youngsters of Duluth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOM BOMAN is a professor in the education department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. 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