Eagan High School National Speech Champion Recognized at School Board Meeting

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district board on Monday recognized Eagan High School student Garrett Lukin, who earned top honors in the prose category at the National Forensic League Speech and Debate tournament in Dallas in June.

Lukin, who will attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall, has been to state competition twice, and nationals twice, coach Joni Anker said Monday. At nationals, he competed against about 200 students, she said.

"He's really a very ... special young man," Anker said.

For his prose piece, Lukin chose a five-minute excerpt from the book "The Hands of my Father," a memoir that discusses a man's childhood in the 1940s, growing up as an interpretor for his deaf parents.

Lukin signs fluently, Anker said; he and she both have brothers who are deaf, and have read extensively on the topic.

"We kind of share that passion," Anker said.

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The board also voted to impose hourly fees to allow students not in District 196 schools to attend summer school classes; Director of Secondary Education Mark Parr said the district has gotten a handful of requests from private school attendees, or students outside district boundaries all together, to attend summer school.

The fees are $4.60 per hour for elementary school, $4.21 per hour for middle school and $5.96 per hour for high school. A high schooler would attend roughly 60 hours of summer school, a middle school student 80 and an elementary school student between 40 and 60, Parr said.

In August, the board will vote whether to change the attendance area for 40 homes in Eagan, from Black Hawk Middle School in Eagan to Falcon Ridge Middle School in Apple Valley. This would align the elementary, middle school and high school paths for the students in the neighborhood, Parr said.

Three students already will attend Falcon Ridge due to requesting an in-district transfer, Parr said.