best middle school in Duluth

[Delaneyland]

My point was to keep the subject on track about Duluth schools, you veered off into Metro schools. I attempted to give information about the failings of ISD 709, you began pointing in the direction of a State issue. My whole point of bringing up the financial woes of the school system was to give texasprairedog an idea of what to expect when he moved to Duluth, not to get into a political discussion of state funding cuts. I have lived here for most of my life and have seen the financial irresponsibility of the district for a long time. My expectations of elected officials are to be fiscally responsible when budgeting, not to overspend with no foresight of where the cashola will come. I was suggesting a new thread to discuss the subject of poor school funding, TX question was about DULUTH SCHOOLS which is where I was trying to keep the discussion going. I don't know where you get the cutting of 225 million, the district is going to tax us all another 225 million to close five schools and rebuild the remaining ones....that is 225 million ABOVE what they already get.

[sweeetcharity]

Wow- you inspired a great debate - but back to your question- Ordean MS, and East HS are the highest performing in Duluth. Hermantown is the equivalent to a "suburb" of Duluth and the schools there are pretty good- but huge and growing. There is new leadership for the Duluth School District - moving in a positive direction, but maybe not fast enough to benefit your kids. Have you looked at neighborhoods? Are you looking for city living, country living, or a neighborhood setting? Duluth is open enrollment - so no matter where you live in the district - if you are willing to provide transportation your kids can go wherever, but it is nice to develop relationships with local families. We moved to Duluth from Alaska 4 years ago and have learned a lot - I worked in the schools for 2 years, am happy to answer any questions I wish could have been answered for me ahead of time.

[texasprairiedog]

Originally Posted by sweeetcharity

Wow- you inspired a great debate - but back to your question- Ordean MS, and East HS are the highest performing in Duluth. Hermantown is the equivalent to a "suburb" of Duluth and the schools there are pretty good- but huge and growing. There is new leadership for the Duluth School District - moving in a positive direction, but maybe not fast enough to benefit your kids. Have you looked at neighborhoods? Are you looking for city living, country living, or a neighborhood setting? Duluth is open enrollment - so no matter where you live in the district - if you are willing to provide transportation your kids can go wherever, but it is nice to develop relationships with local families. We moved to Duluth from Alaska 4 years ago and have learned a lot - I worked in the schools for 2 years, am happy to answer any questions I wish could have been answered for me ahead of time.

Thanks, sweeetcharity and others. The situation there seems daunting to me, and it's significant to choose a promising school district. Actually I put school district first, and I will live anywhere as long as the schools are good. I haven't got a chance to look at the neighborhood settings. I will work in the university; is it possible that we choose Hermantown in terms of transportation? How large is the class size in MS in Hermantown? I was told there is only one MS in Hermantown; will you recommend the MS there? Thanks a lot.

[sweeetcharity]

http://www.hermantown.k12.mn.us/Middle/ms_office/middle.html (broken link)

Parental involvement compensates for district problems at Ordean. The kids coming there are from families that have child-centered philosophies, a lot of full-time parents, but still a good mix of working class and professional families. I never worked at Hermantown Middle- and classses are difficult to estimate because 6th grade is when the children start switching classrooms for different subjects and different abiltity levels. Hermantown borders Duluth, so a commute would not be a problem, but I wouldn't write off East Duluth. Woodland neighborhoods (near the university) are great too and your kids could attend Ordean. There are some neat programs in the middle schools organized by the education department at UMD to help their potential teachers get hands-on insight and experience. Even though Duluth Public Schools is facing some big decisions - there is no doubt that this is a community that values education and will rally to get the right thing done.

[Delaneyland]

Hey TX,

You may want to check out Hermantown Schools by looking at their website, www.hermantown.k12.mn.us/ there is a fair amount of information as well as contact numbers for the administration and individual schools. As far as driving from Hermantown to the University, it really depends on where you live in Hermantown. I would guess it would be close to a 20 minute drive or more unless you live right on the border of Duluth and Hermantown. I don't know if you've got your heart set on Hermantown or not, I would still encourage you to check out Esko / Carlton / Cloquet area.. they seem to have good schools, are a little more rural, and property hasn't risen as drastically as it has in Hermantown. Another consideration is the Airport right on the outskirts of Hermantown, if you don't like aircraft noise you'll want to consider other areas. Although there isn't a whole lot of Commercial air traffic any longer, the 148th fighter wing of the ANG is here in Duluth and they seem to stay quite busy. ALthough you didn't say what University you'd be working at, they are only a mile apart...you'll probably encounter more traffic getting in and out of the U than you will during your commute.

[sweeetcharity]

I re-read your original post and saw you'll have a fifth grader - the Lakewood area might be perfect for you ; ) I have a fifth grader at Lakewood Elementary this year. It is a very good school - the area is a little more rural, but minutes from the university. Lakewood is actually a township - but the mailing address and school district etc. is Duluth. Cloquet Carlton and Esko are nice areas, but Esko is very expensive right now and the 30 mile drive from Cloquet back and forth the UMD I suspect would get old.