Duluth board moves Alternative Learning Center to Technology Center

The Duluth School Board approved moving the district’s Alternative Learning Center to the Duluth Technology Center, abandoning an earlier plan to lease the Radio Central Building on Central Entrance. The switch came after remodeling needs at the former newspaper site complicated the lease arrangement and raised fresh questions about where alternative education students would actually be housed.

The Minnesota Department of Education monitoring review began after an August 25, 2025, letter to Duluth Public Schools. The April 20, 2026, report found the review was prompted in part by a Google form used to mark students present for independent study. The department requested independent-study student lists, teacher schedules, licenses and continual learning plans as it examined the program.

The review expanded in January 2026 and found 20 compliance issues at the Duluth Area Learning Center, including problems with online instruction, a four-day work week that had not been approved, enrollment record keeping and staff teaching subjects without proper license renewals. The district has 30 days from the April 20 report to submit an action plan addressing the findings.

The ALC will become an Alternative Learning Program, with targeted services and independent-study approval set to stop on July 1, 2026. Credit-recovery work had to be completed by June 30, 2026. If sanctions remain in place for the 2026-27 school year, students from the Proctor, Hermantown and Lake Superior school districts will not be served, and Duluth’s public study programs and after-school Excel offerings for grades K-8 would not continue.

Principal Nathan Glockle said the setting reaches some of the district’s most diverse and unconventional learners, many of them discouraged or credit-deficient. A parent, Chris Vold, urged the school board to reconsider the Radio Central Building, saying it would be cramped and would lack a gym and outdoor space.