Four metro-area school districts are asking local voters this week for additional tax support to help cover operating costs. Roseville, St. Francis, Spring Lake Park and Westonka are the first among dozens of levy referendums planned this fall in financially strapped school districts.

	Forty students squeeze into the seventh hour advanced German class this year at Spring Lake Park High School. There's little room between desks and the air is warm and stale. Teacher Wendy Hatchner says it's a challenge just to make eye contact with that many students. (MPR Photo/Tim Pugmire)

Forty students squeeze into the seventh hour advanced German class this year at Spring Lake Park High School. There's little room between desks and the air is warm and stale. Teacher Wendy Hatchner says it's a challenge just to make eye contact with that many students.

"Because teaching is so much a personal, intimate experience every day," Hatchner said. "And when there are so many kids in a room, it's almost like a college class when I remember I couldn't tell you what some of my profs looked like, because I was way in the back in an auditorium. They didn't know me, I didn't know them, I came I took notes and I left. I don't want these guys to feel that way in here."

Administrators say large class sizes are unavoidable in Spring Lake Park after the loss of 50 teaching positions over the last two years. The small suburban district of 4,400 students has been forced to make deep cuts to balance its annual budgets and also to climb gradually out of operating debt. The district has a two-question referendum on the ballot that could generate up to $2.2 million a year for 10 years. Superintendent Don Helmstetter says approval of both questions is needed to prevent further cuts next year.

"We've told folks this is what we're going to do to maintain on the short term," Helmstetter said. "Once we get a little more of a foundation built again, assuming we have at least some consistency from the Legislature, then we will look at programs and people - staffing - to rebuild on. But not initially."

Last November, voters in the Spring Lake Park school district rejected a levy referendum by 140 votes. Voters in the St. Francis school district defeated a levy by a 2-1 margin, but district officials there are also ready for another try. If approved, the referendum would generate $3.4 million a year for 10 years.

The St. Francis school district serves 5,800 students in northern Anoka County and part of Isanti County. Superintendent Michael Wyatt says the revenue would raise the district to about the statewide average in per pupil spending.

"This referendum is of huge importance to the district," Wyatt said. "Because you cannot compete, you cannot maintain the same level of service when you are under-funded to the extent that we are in comparison to all other schools in the state of Minnesota."

	Superintendent Don Helmstetter says approval of two levy questions is needed in Spring Lake Park to prevent further cuts next year. (MPR Photo/Tim Pugmire)

After three years of red ink, Wyatt says the St. Francis school district will be out of debt next year, with or without the levy. But he says the levy is needed to prevent another $1 million in projected budget reductions next year.

The Westonka school district is seeking voter approval for a levy that would generate an additional $800,000 a year for 10 years. District officials say If the referendum fails, the same amount in cuts would be needed.

Most school districts spell out for voters the grim consequences of a levy referendum defeat. But officials in the Roseville school district are only accentuating the positive. They're asking taxpayers to provide an additional $1.7 million a year for five years to maintain current programs.

Sally Warring, the district's director of community relations and technology, says a defeat would bring more cuts, but they won't use "scare tactics."

"I think our district is unique," Warring said. "We haven't asked for a levy referendum in 13 years. We haven't been turned down for a levy referendum. We have a high level of involvement in our community, and our community people said we need it. So when they say we need it and we agree then they will be the ones that will help us cut."

Roseville, St. Francis, Spring Lake Park, Westonka and other districts struggling with the "statutory operating debt" label are allowed more flexibility in scheduling levy votes. The state requires all other districts to wait a full calendar year after a referendum defeat before trying again.