The Eagle Grove Area Community School District administration building will house more than just the superintendent and staff offices come the start of next fall’s school year. It will also be the site of three to five new classrooms for high school students.
Superintendent Jess Toliver said more space for high school students comes from the need to accommodate the large freshmen and sophomore classes of the 21/22 school year. One question Toliver has been asked is, “20 years ago, classes were that size and we were able to accommodate them (at the existing high school).” Toliver’s response is that back then, they didn’t have as many ELL (English Language Learners) classes, as many special education needs, or as many special programs.
“The building is designed that if we would need additional growth you could add on a section (besides the three to five classrooms) that would almost mirror the (administration) building and add more classrooms,” said Toliver.
He added that the big limiting factor they have is if the district goes ahead and does the mirror image building now as a way to replace the old high school, even if you kept use of the band/choir rooms and the gym, you could “cram” everything in them, but if you have any growth, you don’t have enough building space and you don’t have any bond capacity to build more. That’s why, from an economic perspective, the district believes renovating the administration building is the cheapest way to accommodate a new high school as well as being the only way to get new infrastructure and stay within bonding capacities.
“At the currency time, my plan would be to continue to use the (current) high school for the foreseeable future,” said Toliver, adding that just because they are renovating the administration building, it doesn’t rule out improvements to the high school building.
They plan to at some point do a heating/cooling system update as well as different mechanical upgrades. They will also look at things they can do to make it more modern, potentially adding new windows to match those of the administration building.
“The structure itself (of the high school) is sound and built to last a long time,” said Toliver. “It’s just designed for the needs of 20th Century needs versus the 21st Century.
Work began on the administration building renovation at the start of the 20/21 school year. Funding for the project comes in part from borrowing against the statewide penny tax and the TIFF money they received from Wright County to prepare for the anticipated growth of Prestage coming to the area. Combining and using these two together has allowed us to do the addition to the elementary, redo the kitchen at the middle school, locker rooms in the elementary, and now the classroom space in the administration building.
The Eagle Grove Area School District has gained 100 kids in the last three years. Toliver says there is room for more students at the elementary, but not at the other levels as things sit now.
The project is slated to be completed by the end of June 2020. While things may look slightly different in the building, most of the money is being spent on “hidden” work like ventilation, heating/cooling, fireproofing, and a sprinkler system.
Details of which classes will be held in the new administration building next year will be determined over the course of the summer months.
