by Jim Boyle
Editor
Members of the Elk River Area School Board met in work session on Dec. 5 to synthesize the voluminous work of its facilities usage committee in preparation for decision day on Dec. 12.
Board members like Option B as it relates to the opening of a new Otsego facility being built to someday house an E-8 program from early childhood, kindergarten and first grade on up to the eighth.
Members also seem to lean toward an option that frees the most space possible at Twin Lakes Elementary, despite concerns raised by board members Sue Farber and Dan Hunt that students from one of it’s high performing elementary schools would be moved to “arguably” its lowest performing elementary school, they said.
School Board Member Gregg Peppin, the newest member of the governmental unit said he had some questions he would need answered before giving an opinion on which option he prefers.
Southern schools
Among the chief questions for the southern cluster of schools are how quickly to bring all three middle school grades into the new Otsego E-8 facility and how to fund an expansion that members of the Elk River Area School Board knew would come but not nearly as quickly as its need is now projected. The task force left no doubt in its opinion, as it includes a 250-student addition in year two of the school’s existence in both of the options it presented for consideration.
School Board members like Option B as it is less disruptive for students and families by spreading the move into the school over a three-year period rather than two periods.
To do that the idea is to move only sixth grade students into a new Otsego attendance zone out of Rogers Middle School the first year it opens and then sixth and seventh grade students in that zone the following year. In year three, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in the new Otsego zone would attend the school in its first year as a true E-8 school.
Hassan Elementary School is being left alone for now, but has been built with the idea of expanding it someday to limit the cost of an addition.
Superintendent Bruce Watkins agreed that to staff a single grade would be harder logistically, as it would require more travelling teachers and such but it could be done.
“Option A is more disruptive,” Watkins said. “Option B gives us more time.”
Jamie Plantenberg-Selbitschka agreed.
“It’s smart,” she said. “Especially for kids that struggle with mental health.”
School Board Chairman Shane Steinbrecher said he liked Option B, too, because it gives the district time to see what it’s capture rates are of families that choose Elk River schools over other options. It’s expected they will lose fewer students to St. Michael Albertville Schools, especially in the lower grades, but by how much is unknown.
“If it goes like everything else in this district, we will be putting on an addition twice the size of this,” he said, half-joking and half-serious. “By making this choice we would not be pulling the trigger on expansion and we would still have time to figure that out.”
Peppin asked questions about the nature of the addition. Was it planned? Did the district make plans to build the school too small?
District officials and board members clarified that the first time the E-8 facility was proposed to voters — before the recession — it was defeated.
When the matter was taken up again, the dilemma was that the numbers didn’t call for both a full-scale elementary school and a full-scale middle school, but both student populations were crowding existing schools.
“If we built two 750 (student) schools, we would have had excess capacity,” said Joe Stangler, the school district’s administrator of research and assessment. “We saw the E-8 as a way to bridge (the situation).”
Farber, the longest serving board member, said the board knew the district would have to expand the school and eventually build another school to handle the southern elementary and middle school populations.
“It’s a surprise to me that we already have to add on, but that’s just because it’s happening sooner than we thought it would be needed.”
Stangler said the rest of the district has grown at a slower pace than the south, and some of the growth in the south has been somewhat hidden as the district has lost students to STMA schools.
Watkins also surmised that efforts were also probably made to keep the referendum, which was for $98 million, under $100 million.
A 250-student addition is estimated to cost $4.5 million and there are several approaches that could fund it.
One would be a lease levy that can be used to expand existing facilities without going to the voters. That option is available to districts so they can add up to 20 percent of the square footage of the building, but it would be more costly to taxpayers as it one-third of the funds that come from state taxes for bond referendums would not flow to the school district. Local taxpayers would pick up the entire bill.
Another option is to pull reserve funds from reserves to the corresponding $98 million bond referendum and the $6 million operating levy as well as pull from the district’s own capital reserves. Farber suggested that would be best way to stay true to its referendum.
The third option would be to put it to a vote.
The need to change boundary lines in Elk River have to do with extreme crowding at Twin Lakes Elementary. An attempt to adjust them was made already but the process fell apart with School Board members asking for a more inclusive process to move the district along in a more thoughtful manner.
Twin Lakes Elementary School is at 104 percent capacity – there are 807 students in a building that is designed to house 775.
In all three of the proposals being considered by the School Board, a chunk of 63 students in the Parker attendance area will be shifted to Lincoln
In a second option know as Option B there is an area currently with 92 students going from Twin Lakes Elemementary School into Parker Elementary School. This group is located mostly between Wal-Mart and the Northstar train station.
In Option C these first two options are combined, and there’s a third segment of Twin Lakes attendance area that is changed to the Lincoln Elementary School attendance area. Under this scenario Parker takes on 91 children and Lincoln takes on 155 students.
Cory Franson, the director of community engagement and community education said this takes care of the imbalance of middle school system (at Salk and VandenBerge), as Lincoln would be at 96 percent capacity.
“That’s a big switch for a lot of people,” Farber said.
Once this change, the most dramatic change being proposed, is made, it would give the district the longest term solution of the three proposal, Watkins said, noting it could give the district six years.
Growth is expected in the Twin Lakes attendance zone, but not in the other zones in Elk River.
Farber asked it the district could slide into such a change, similar to how the district might slide into a change in the south.
The smaller the number that are moved, the sooner we’re back at the table, several said.
“I like the idea of move the bigger number and get it done,” School Board Member Tony Walter said. “Boom. You get it done.”
School Board Member Dan Hunt said he’d be the bad guy and bring up what he saw as the elephant in the room.
“Did the group take Lincoln’s under performance into consideration by moving that many kids to that school and going to 96 percent capacity,” he asked.
Steinbrecher said the School Board is aware of the school’s performance on tests, and added the School Board took action this past summer.
Jana Hennen-Burr, the assistant superintendent, said due to low test scores in math and reading administrators requested additional support from the board this past summer and got it.
“We requested and were granted a 1.0 full time equivalent intervention teacher and professional development time, she said.
The building also used building funds to support interventions so that all students were getting support. She said it’s a process and will take time.
“I believe we will see success,” she said. “You will have a board update at the end of January when we have internal data to show our progress thus far.”
Farber said proposals to move Twin Lakes students to Lincoln were the biggest components that led to the last plan failing.
“How can you take kids from a high performing school and put them in arguably the lowest performing school,” she said “That’s the only problem I’m having with this.”
Steinbrecher said when boundary line proposals like this came through on the first go-around the district hadn’t had the results from Lincoln and the board hadn’t infused money into it.
“We made changes,” he said. “Let’s not look at this and say its under-performing. Let’s look at it and say what do we got to do to this school to make it perform.”
Plantenberg-Selbitchka said it is incumbent on the board and administration to show results.
“We found the need, and we invested,” she said.
Steinbrecher said if 100 new homes go in the Twin Lakes area and the district doesn’t prepare, the board will be back at the table in two years.
Plantenberg-Selbitchka said the fact that these proposals were decided on by community members, not only those who live in that neighborhood but the entire district, gives her comfort with the decisions ahead, “because we relied on our community members.”
Farber said that goes without saying, but that she doesn’t want to relive the same emails that flew last time.
The Elk River Area School Board will be asked to make decisions on boundary lines on Dec. 12, with decisions on other facilities issues that were discussed by the task force coming later.
For more on the Elk River Area School District Facilities Usage Committee and its recommendations, go to: http://www.isd728.org/Page/2621