St. Paul: Will a Historic Church Be Razed to Make Room for a Segregated White Charter School?
Sarah Lahm wrote in The Progressive about a community battle in St. Paul, Minnesota, over the fate of a historic church building.
The church in question is St. Andrew’s. Built in 1927 in the Romanesque Revival style, the brown brick church boasts an impressive, multicolored terra-cotta tile roof and a handsome bell tower. From the street, it looks alive and well kept, although Mass hasn’t been celebrated there since 2011.
Back then, the shrinking parish was merged with another one nearby while the building sat in limbo for two years. In 2013, the Twin Cities German Immersion School, a growing charter school in search of a permanent home, began leasing the church building and its accompanying school site by taking on $8 million in construction and real-estate debt.
The local community didn’t mind that the charter school moved in. It does object, however, to plans to tear it down. The St. Paul NAACP joined the opposition to the charter’s plan to grow.
But money isn’t the reason the St. Paul NAACP opposedthe proposed expansion of the Twin Cities German Immersion School. Instead, it is segregation. The group, CONTINUE READING: St. Paul: Will a Historic Church Be Razed to Make Room for a Segregated White Charter School? | Diane Ravitch's blog