Hopkins Lays Out Process for Reviewing Unite Edina Detachment Request

Hopkins school district officials have scheduled two meetings for Unite Edina 273 to make their case about why some Edina homeowners living in Hopkins school district boundaries should be allowed to join Edina Public Schools.

The Citizens Financial Advisory Committee, a five-member group that helps the district with financial planning, will listen to presentations from Unite Edina petitioners’ representatives and legal counsel at 7:30 a.m. Oct. 24, the school district announced Wednesday afternoon.

The Hopkins School Board’s Policy Monitoring Committee will hear from Unite Edina at 1 p.m. Nov. 14.

The district may convene a hearing to listen to the public’s thoughts at 6 p.m. Dec. 11 as part of the Truth and Taxation meeting.

Unite Edina is made up of Parkwood Knolls and Walnut Drive property owners who say they want to leave the Hopkins school district because its schools are not in locations that serve the families’ educational needs. The district has never had a school in Edina in its 130 years and has closed the two schools closest to the neighborhood.

Unite Edina submitted about 450 petitions requesting detachment—a total that represents 97 percent of property owners in the area, according to the organization.

Even though districts are typically named after one of the cities they serve, they are separate local government entities, legally distinct from those cities. Hopkins Public Schools, for example, covers all of Hopkins, most of Minnetonka, half of Golden Valley and parts of Eden Prairie, Edina, Plymouth and St. Louis Park.

The district is in the process of analyzing the tax and fiscal impacts of the petition—including the impact it would have on the district’s education programs, the petitioners’ property taxes and the tax liability of property owners whose property lies outside the detaching areas.

Analysis is expected by the end of October.

The School Board will take action on the petitions once the district "has received input from the public and all other relevant stakeholders." A final decision could be made as early as the Jan. 24 board Meeting.

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See the map above for a look at the areas petitioning to be moved from Hopkins Public Schools to Edina schools. The purple areas have petitioned to detach. The blue areas are within Edina's boundaries, but have not asked to leave Hopkins schools.