Perpich to shutter its Woodbury middle school ahead of deadline
The Perpich Center for Arts Education announced Friday it plans to close a Woodbury middle school it runs.
Perpich board chair Ben Vander Kooi said Crosswinds Arts and Science School will end classes on June 23. The school will officially close June 30.
"We'll have to lay off all faculty, and students will need to find a different place to go to school next fall," Vander Kooi said.
Vander Kooi said Perpich will send information to parents to help them through the process of finding a new school. The announcement is sudden, coming after Perpich just survived a legislative attempt to close the entire system this past session.
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Vander Kooi says board members realized this week that the recently-passed education bill removes Perpich authority to run Crosswinds after July 1. Two school districts had already expressed interest in taking over the school for sixth through 10th graders. But Vander Kooi said a transfer won't be able to be completed by the July 1 deadline.
"We were hoping to have a better result for students and faculty, and we weren't able to achieve that," Vander Kooi said.
The education bill puts the Crosswinds transfer process under the Minnesota Department of Administration.
That process includes an appraisal of the property, which real estate and construction services director Wayne Waslaski said will likely take until the end of August.
Waslaski said the commissioner of administration could rent the property in the meantime. A department spokesperson said no one has expressed interest in that option so far.