BEMIDJI — Parents, teachers and community members spoke in support of keeping J.W. Smith Elementary School open for at least one more year at a public hearing Tuesday, March 24, as Bemidji Area Schools considers consolidating and closing the K-3 school.
Around 100 people gathered at the Bemidji High School commons area for the district’s legally required public hearing. A final vote on the district’s proposed budget reductions, including shuttering J.W., is expected 5 p.m. Monday during a special Board meeting at the District Office.
Many commenters urged the district to consider offloading other properties to address the district’s excess space issue, like the downtown District Office and the Paul Bunyan Early Childhood Center near the Bemidji Regional Airport.
“I know that an empty J.W. Smith is not a very marketable piece of property if the school district decided to sell it," Mark Dickinson said. Dickinson has decades of experience as a local realtor and is currently Bemidji’s Ward 3 representative on the City Council.
Superintendent Jeremy Olson’s presentation indicated that there are empty classrooms in the district’s school buildings due to a decline in enrollment and falling local birth rates, and closing J.W. would result in more use in the other elementary schools.
J.W. Smith is one of the district’s three sites for pre-K offerings. It's also a satellite for the neighboring Boys and Girls Club of the Bemidji Area, which offers after-school care to J.W. students. State grant funds support offering this service to J.W. families free of charge.
“The students at J.W. and the kids that attend the Boys and Girls Club events there after school would be severely negatively impacted if this school were to close,” Dickinson said. “The students that use this facility are likely some of the most at-risk kids in Bemidji.”
J.W. Smith serves around 200 students who are predominantly Native American and rely on free and reduced lunch. Commenters questioned the board’s decision to “balance its budget on the backs” of these students without meaningful tribal consultation.
“The proposal emphasizes efficiency and available space, but it does not fully address what is currently working well for students,” said Jaime Cobenais, member of the Bemidji School District’s American Indian Parent Advisory Committee.
“For many Native students, successes in school is grounded in relationships, consistency and a sense of belonging. At J.W. Smith, students have those connections with staff, peers and families.”
J.W. Smith Elementary is the district’s oldest school building, built in 1954, and lies in a walkable neighborhood near Bemidji’s Old Town. The district’s other, newer elementaries are miles away: Lincoln Elementary in Nymore, Northern Elementary in Northern Township, Horace May Elementary in Grant Lake Township and Solway Elementary near the Clearwater County line. Gene Dillon Elementary, which serves fourth and fifth graders, was built in 2018 and is near Bemidji High School.
The walkability of J.W., Cobenais and others said, helps families better engage with school staff through evening events and school meetings.
“Many families rely on that accessibility, especially those facing transportation challenges or housing instability,” Cobenais said. “That access supports consistent attendance, and it is not clear how those needs will be met if students are reassigned.”
Community member Govinda Budreau, who introduced herself as a relative and auntie of J.W. Smith students, said the proposed closure “is reminiscent of a history and a story that we have already experienced, and that is the removal of our children from families and our communities.”
Budreau was among the many commenters who questioned the board’s decision not to engage with area tribes or the AIPAC about the closure.
“Are you making this decision to comfort the privileged in this community, or are you doing this to displace the vulnerable?” she asked.
'Keeping the books healthy’
Bemidji Area Schools’ Board of Education is looking to trim around $3 million from its budget this spring to avoid further deficit spending from its unreserved general fund balance.
That fund balance was over $9 million in July 2025, according to the district’s latest budget, or nearly 15% of the district’s expenses. Districts are recommended to maintain reserves of around 10%, which is Bemidji Area Schools’ target in its fund balance policy.
The balance is projected to go down to around $7.2 million, or 10.7%, due to expenses exceeding revenues by more than $2.5 million this year.
Olson said the district has been deficit spending from the general fund since 2019 but injected one-time federal COVID-19 relief funds into the balance over the years to spread out budget cuts. The Board lopped off over $1 million from its budget last year, shifted to a five-period day at Bemidji High School in 2022 to save on staffing hours and shuttered Central Elementary School in 2021 to cut costs.
School boards are generally required by state law to maintain healthy finances, and districts can face statutory operating debt if operating debt exceeds more than 2.5% of the most recent year’s expenditure amount.
“We see that happen quite a bit, that districts will deficit spend, trying to mitigate the impact to the students, but knowing full well that they're going to have to readjust at some point and take on those hard conversations in order to reduce the expenditures so we don't go too far,” Gary Lee explained in a Wednesday interview. Lee is the deputy executive director of the Minnesota School Boards Association and a former member of the Fertile-Beltrami School Board.
“Right now we have this big problem with compensatory revenue,” Lee continued, describing items like changes in free and reduced lunch. “There are a number of districts that are going to take some big hits because of the changes the feds and the state have done in how they calculate this revenue. Bemidji was one of them that's on the short end of this stick.”
School boards are not necessarily required to balance a budget to the dot, according to Lee.
“It doesn't say you have to have a balanced budget, but [school boards are] in charge of managing the finances, and that means keeping the books healthy,” he said.
Statutory operating debt would hand over budget decisions to the state, Lee explained, and cuts could be wide-ranging.
“Nothing is off the table as far as cuts are concerned,” he said.
Maggie Larson, a J.W. teacher, commented that many school districts operate on a deficit with much smaller general funds, and stated there is no “reward” from the state if the district has a balanced budget.
"So for us to be acting like, ‘my gosh, we have to close a school to be saving money,’ but we have these funds,” Larson said. “We know that this is not something that we have to do.”
J.W. Smith Principal Bruce Goodwin urged the board to consider the students and keep the school open another year.
“We need time to look for another answer. Operating at or below the fund balance for one more year is acceptable if it means we have a real chance to find another way,” Goodwin said. “Additional revenue streams, land sales, rethinking operations, or something else represents another way.”
School board members were presented with two budget reduction option lists at their March 3 meeting, and both options included closing J.W.
The shuttering of J.W. Smith represents about $1 million in cost savings, with Olson noting that around $1.5 million in deferred maintenance costs over five years would also be avoided with the closure.
Other budget reductions proposed include delaying the hire of currently vacant positions in the District Office, “right-sizing” fourth through 12th grade classrooms to reflect enrollment and delaying curriculum and bus purchases.
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