Property-owner rights, public education, and St. Paul history are all converging around one of Minnesota’s most successful public charter schools, in a sleepy little corner of the city.
In District 10’s Como Park neighborhood, a small group of residents seeks to prevent the K-8 Twin Cities German Immersion School (TCGIS) from replacing a dilapidated former church that it has owned since 2013 with a modern addition that better serves the needs of TCGIS’s nearly 600 students. This small group, calling themselves Save Historic Saint Andrew’s (SHSA), has petitioned the City of Saint Paul to historically designate the former church, over TCGIS’s objections, and actively opposed TCGIS’s efforts to obtain the minor variances it needs to improve its school building.
Historic designation would saddle a public school with the obligation to spend taxpayer dollars designated for education to preserve a religious structure. This is simply wrong.
TCGIS acquired the vacant St. Andrew’s school and neighboring church buildings in 2013, and has already invested $8 million to purchase the campus and make improvements. It constructed a new wing connecting the school and former church space into a single building, and adaptively reused the former sanctuary as a makeshift gym. The 2013 improvements enabled TCGIS to comfortably educate three sections of grades K-4, and two sections of grades 5-8, which at the time was a reasonable expectation for enrollment based on historic data trends.
Contrary to historic trends, students over the past five years have chosen to remain in the school through eighth grade, one of many indicators of the significant success TCGIS has had. By 2016, the school recognized it would need to adjust its space to serve three sections of grades 5-8, and began exploring alternative sites or construction options. Through this evaluative process, it became evident that using the former sanctuary as a makeshift gym — with apses, naves and sharp corners, and capacity to hold just one gym class at a time — could not work in the long-term.
Moreover, having maintained the space for nearly five years, the school recognized that the cost to maintain a nearly 100-year-old structure is not a good use of public education dollars. It diverts badly needed funds from teacher salaries and educational programming. After engaging in a two-year assessment of its options, the board decided to replace the former church portion of our building with a modern, three-story replacement that has the same footprint as the old structure. Our building improvements will create a much-enhanced learning space for our students, with purpose-built space for physical education, special education, and school lunch.
The District 10 Como Park neighborhood supports the proposed improvements. After vigorous debate with nearly 200 neighbors in attendance, neighbors voted by a clear majority to recommend approval of the project, which the Como Community Council affirmed. Despite this neighborhood support, the SHSA group has rallied against our plans. The group has persuaded the City’s Heritage Preservation Commission to recommend that our building be declared a historic site. The recommendation was made by a minority of the full 13-member HPC commission, with only six voting in favor of designation, while two voted against and the rest opted not to be present for the controversial vote. The Heritage Preservation Commission acted over TCGIS’s strong objection, with no plan for how the structure can be used to educate our students or address their currently unmet needs.
The St. Paul Planning Commission voted against historic designation in December by a 12-1 vote, finding designation does not comport with the City’s Comprehensive Plan, which places a strong priority on planning for the future and meeting the needs of people within the community, especially children. Despite this decision, certain Planning Commission members have voted against TCGIS’s campus improvement project, stating they believe the former church space should be preserved and that plan approval would have a negative impact on the neighborhood. Both rationales should be rejected.
First, the Planning Commission has already determined that the city’s Comprehensive Plan weighs against historic designation. Second, the commissioners’ concerns regarding the neighborhood are ones that will exist regardless of whether TCGIS’s improvement plan is approved, and the plan actually would improve neighborhood conditions. The school is not expanding; rather, our building improvements are designed to accommodate the almost 600 students we already have. Built into the plan are improvements that will minimize the impact on the neighborhood, such as smoother drop-off and pick-up routes, increased parking spaces, and a noise-abating fence. Moreover, the commissioners’ impression that the school has a negative impact on the neighborhood is belied by the neighborhood’s support for the plan.
The City of St. Paul should prioritize children over bricks, and the future over the past. We urge the Planning Commission to follow the recommendations of city staff and the Como Community Council, and approve TCGIS’s improvement plan. We further urge the City Council to reject historic designation. Designation would threaten TCGIS’s very existence, and compromise the needs of our students.
Kelly Laudon has served on the Twin Cities German Immersion School board of directors since 2014, and as board chair from 2015-2018. Sam Walling has served on the board since 2016 and is its current board chair. Both are parents of students at the school.
