District 279 School Board Authorizes Legal Action Concerning Former Osseo Elementary Site

The Osseo School District School Board gave its approval at its June 21 meeting for the district to go to court as part of an ongoing disagreement with the Osseo City Council over the former Osseo Elementary building in Osseo, which was shuttered in 2008 due to budget reductions.

The District 279 School Board has previously proposed moving the district's alternative high school program into the former Osseo Elementary building in a musical chairs-style maneuver designed to save the district $350,000 in leasing costs for facilities used by three other Osseo School District programs. For example, moving the district’s program from a space leased on 96th Avenue in Maple Grove into a district-owned building in Brooklyn Park--a building that currently houses the Osseo Area Learning Center (OALC) program.

The OALC, the district’s alternative for high school students who struggle in a traditional classroom setting, would leave its current location located in Brooklyn Park,  just over the Maple Grove border. The district’s proposal would move the OALC program into the former Osseo Elementary building, taking with it students from throughout the district including some Maple Grove students.

But the Osseo City Council has opposed the district moving the OALC program to the former Osseo Elementary site. In a 3-2 vote Feb. 14, the Osseo City Council denied the district the conditional use permit believed necessary to relocate to the OALC program to the former elementary school building  in Osseo.

On June 21, the District 279 School Board took the next move by adopting a resolution to "seek clarification of the School Board's authority to place educational programs in its owned facilities by seeking a declaratory judgment in State District Court.”

“The concern is that we own a school building that we want to use as a school building,” District 279 Assistant Superintendent Kim Riesgraf said in an interview with Maple Grove Patch after the meeting. “We think we should use our buildings, and they think they should be able to tell us how to use our buildings.”

Riesgraf said the District Court is likely to push for mediation before rendering a judgment.

The Osseo School District School Board voted 5-1 to file a petition with the District Court, though more than one member had reservations about initiating a public feud with another government agency.

“I don’t want to disagree with what the City Council has voted for,” Board Member Jim Burgett said, who cast the only dissenting vote. “They’re looking for something else, something that would appeal to small children and bring families into the city.”

The Star Tribune reported in March that the Osseo City Council voted against allowing the OALC’s move into the Osseo Elementary Building because of “the impact such a relocation would have on neighboring property values, as well as increased traffic and students loitering and smoking in the area of the school.”

Board Member Teresa Lunt said that while she did not want to move the OALC to the former elementary building (“It appeared that we were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole”), she was concerned with asserting the district’s right to “maintain and operate our facilities.”

“Outside council advises us,” she said, “that by doing nothing, we risk ceding our interest and our property and setting precedent for other cities in our footprint.”

Read information released by the Osseo School District on this issue here.