Concerned residents want decisions on whether to close the Brownsdale Elementary School to be a community decision as Hayfield Community Schools moves ahead in planning for its future.

More than 250 people attended a public hearing Monday night about possibly closing the Brownsdale Elementary School.

“It’s a community issue and should be looked at by a community of voices of administration, staff, parents, businessmen on the business street here, and community members,” said community member Kathy Blanchard.

She was one of several people who argued the issue should not only be the board’s decision but should be looked at and decided by the community.

The Hayfield Community Schools Board brought up the idea of closing the elementary school due to a number of factors, including operating costs, capital expenses, facility needs, and decreasing enrollment trends.

“We had to go through tonight and now it’s time to analyze kind of where we are and what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen and looked at,” Hayfield Community Schools Board Chairman Christopher Ebling said. “And that kind of just drives the process to move forward.”

The board has looked at much information about the issue, and Hayfield Superintendent Belinda Selfors said the district is at a point where it cannot ignore many of the problems any longer.

But no decision has been made as of yet, and Monday’s meeting was only about hearing the public opinion on closing the school.

Selfors took time at the beginning of the meeting, which took place in the Brownsdale Elementary School gymnasium/cafeteria, to discuss background information such as enrollment trends and projections, facility needs and financial status and projection for the future.

Afterward, about 25 people addressed the board with their concerns.

Community member James Hartson did not want the school to close, but he pointed out this is not a new issue.

“The people who built this school did a great job, my grandmother was on the school board when the school was built,” he said. “I’m the last guy that wants to see it closed, but we have to face reality. I hear a lot of emotion, and I’m shocked at how so many people think this is brand new, that it just happened. This is a 20-year-old issue, folks.”

Hartson presented several documents from years ago when the district went through similar issues, as well as even further back when the district was looking at building new kindergarten rooms. He said over the last 20 years he has followed the school, the board has been very transparent.

“I haven’t missed a truth and taxation meeting in more than 20 years,” he said. “I’ll bet you most of the last 10 years I’ve said, ‘How long is it going to be before we’re going to have to close the school?’ I knew this day was coming, the writing’s been on the wall for a long time, and it’s been ignored.”

Although he said the board left this issue too long before addressing it, he noted the longer the issue is ignored the worse the problem will get, and the district could go into Statutory Operating Debt or SOD.

Many people addressed concern over bus routes, a lack of options for students, a lack of transparency and loss of trust, and more.

For Blanchard, it came down to the children. As a retired teacher who served the district about 35 years, Blanchard has also recently been a second-grade substitute teacher.

“Brownsdale area deserves to have a school,” she said. “The school is the future of this area. You take the young children out of this community and we’ll lose the community’s future. No young family is going to move here when there is no school for their young children.”

She questioned if they could cut costs through sharing a superintendent with a neighboring district, or a principal position. Blanchard then shared several letters from second-graders, who wrote to the school board to save their school during a class project.

“Dear school board members, I’m writing this letter to you because I want you to keep our school open,” one student wrote. “My school is the best for me because I want my school to be close to my house. We might lose our friends to other schools. I want to ride my bike to school. Please keep this school open for me, vote no when asked to close this school.”

Blanchard wasn’t the only one who questioned whether there were other fixes to some of the problems.

One of the main issues is a 25 percent decrease in enrollment in the last 13 years. Selfors previously noted the Hayfield campus can hold about 1,000 students, and currently is housing just under 600. The Brownsdale campus currently holds about 120 students, including some kindergarten through second-graders, all the district’s third-graders, and some students in early childhood special education programs.

But a decrease in enrollment wouldn’t change the mind of Heath Garey, who moved to the area about two years ago specifically because of the Brownsdale school.

“My family chose to move here about two and a half years ago in regards to getting out of the current school district that we were in at the time,” he told the board. “We looked from Grand Meadow to Blooming Prairie, and we looked at every single school, every single district and what was the greatest opportunities for our children. I not only support the Brownsdale school, but this is the reason that I actually moved to this district.”

Garey described some of the things his family looked for as smaller class sizes, a warm welcoming, amazing staff and a high education, all of which they found at the Brownsdale School.

“I’m holding the petition that was signed by over 400 people in just two weeks, and we constantly have more pages coming in every day,” he said.

The petition states the decision should be made by the community, not the school board alone.

Community member Pat Towey said there are many people willing to help out by creating committees or lending ideas to help save the school.

“Closing this school is not the worst thing that could ever happen,” he said. “Closing this school with a whole community of people that want to help and never got to, that would be the worst thing to happen to our school.”

For community member Erik Campbell, the meeting was an eye-opening experience, though it didn’t change his hope to keep the school open.

“Honestly, seeing some numbers tonight and hearing a lot from this community, seeing [information] on the [district] website, just really opened my eyes, especially tonight, and it concerned me in many ways,” he said. “We are facing three main problems: enrollment, we are facing a deficit, and we are facing the issue of fixing up the buildings that we have our students attend.”

He said the unfortunate thing is at this point, the district needs to prioritize, and while the board looks at the problem through a financial standpoint and sees the immediate needs, it’s important to also look to the future.

“We have to look beyond that as well,” he continued. “Look at the impact of our school, look at the impact on our families, look at the impact on our community.”

He mentioned things such as asking the right questions, working with other communities, working with city councils to promote and build “on the solid foundation that has defined this community.”

“I hope that you can walk away and say that we’ve done everything we can to prevent this school from closing,” he concluded. “I’m not saying that it can be saved, I look at these numbers and I don’t know that it can be saved, but it’s very clear here by this community … we’re here to support you and we’re here to fight for this district.”

The main thing to do now is either increase revenues or decrease expenses, according to Selfors, to fix the immediate needs, which include things such as roofing, outdated fire alarm and security systems, a lack of sprinklers in buildings, parking lot issues, flooring, heating and cooling issues and more. But closing the Brownsdale campus may not be the best route, which is what the board will need to discuss now that they have more information from the community.

The Brownsdale campus was built in the 1950s as its own school, and consolidated with Hayfield Community Schools sometime later.

“It’s important that everyone realize the board, the administration, the teachers, the support staff, we all have the best interest of our students at heart,” Selfors said. “We’re trying to do what is best for everyone involved. There’s no hidden agendas here, it’s, what do we need to do to move the district forward and provide the best opportunities for all students.”

Selfors was pleased with the number of people who showed up and with the nearly 25 people who decided to speaker.

“This is how democracy works, we’re very happy that people took advantage of the opportunity to be a part of the process,” she said.

The board will meet March 7 for its regularly scheduled work session, and could discuss the data received from the public hearing. The board will also meet March 14 for its regularly scheduled meeting, and though the school closing is not on the agenda, it could be moved to the agenda depending on how the work session goes.

For more information about the process, visit http://hayfield.k12.mn.us/public-hearing/.