The building located at 325 N. Commercial in Eagle Grove has served many purposes over the years. It’s been a community college, housed the Eagle Grove Parks and Recreation Department, served as the Eagle Grove Area School District administration building for the superintendent and staff, and housed high school FFA classes. But, beginning Monday, Aug. 23, it will serve yet another purpose. The entire second floor has been designated as additional high school classrooms.
According to Eagle Grove School Superintendent Jess Toliver, the need for more space comes from large freshmen and sophomore classes this school year. For those wondering how “larger” classes could be accommodated 20 years ago and not today, Toliver answers by saying, back then, the high school didn’t have as many ELL (English Language Learners) classes, as many special education needs, or as many special programs.
“Our three biggest classes in the district are in grades 8, 9, and 10. Our High School will have roughly 100 more kids in it this year than it did three years ago,” he said in an interview when the renovations first began.
At just shy of a million dollar renovation, the administration building’s upper level is slated to house six classrooms. According to Toliver, this project was planned well before COVID hit, using funds in part from a bond (borrowing against the statewide penny tax) and the TIF money they received from Wright County to prepare for the anticipated growth of Prestage coming to the area. Combining and using these two together allowed them to also do the addition to the elementary, redo the kitchen at the middle school, and locker rooms in the elementary. In other words, no ESSER (COVID Relief) money was used for the Administration building renovation.
After careful thought and consideration, Toliver, with input from others, decided these new classrooms will house two social studies classes, 9th-12th grade Spanish classes (which will be located in the largest of all the rooms), math (Algebra 1&2, upper precalculus, trigonometry stats and calculus), and science.
“I think the classrooms in the Administration building look really nice,” said Toliver.
Lindsay Haugland, who is starting her 11th year with the Eagle Grove Area School District, will be teaching in the science room. She is excited about her new, bigger classroom in the Administration building.
“More room gives us the opportunity to ensure a good learning experience for our kids,” she began. “I want the community to know how great this is, not only to have this building here, but to see our high school growing. I think that’s really exciting. The dynamics of the space we need has changed.”
Over the course of the last year or two, it was not unusual to find teachers actually sharing classrooms or common areas in order to have a place for every subject/class needed.
Her husband, Zach, will also be teaching in the renovated building. As the math teacher there, he added “This first year will be a little bit of a trial run,” but he is ready for it.
As far as for his classroom, he is most excited that there are five whiteboard available. That means students will be able to get up and work together solving problems.
Not only is Zach excited about his new classroom, but he is also thrilled to be having the kids back in the classroom again.
“I love interacting with the kids and that was hard to do virtually,” he said, referring to when in-person classes were shut down due to COVID.
Thankfully, the kids will be back, but COVID is still causing some problems. Although the Administration building classrooms will be open for use on the first day of school, August 23, the classrooms themselves won’t be 100 percent ready. Not all of the new furniture and equipment has arrived yet…thanks to COVID delays. But the teachers say they are okay with having to do a little extra work and replacing desks with new tables and other equipment when it finally arrives. At least they have more room, and that was the main issue.
One concern that some students have already expressed is how they will make it to their classes on time if they have to travel between buildings. The problem has been rectified with an amended bell schedule. According to Toliver, they have added one extra minute between classes to give them ample time to get from one classroom to another, or in some cases, one building to another. To allow for these extra minutes, they are starting school five minutes earlier (8:05 a.m.), shortening the lunch period, and shortening the study hall period.
Since they will continue to use the existing 100-year-old high school building for classes as well, several improvements were made there, too, this summer. Some of that work included updates to the bathrooms, locker rooms, the main office, and kitchen.
“We’re taking pride not only in the Administration building, but the high school as well,” noted Lindsay proudly. She believes the improvements to both buildings will also help kids want to be a part of the excitement and take care of their schools.
But just because they are using both buildings doesn’t mean that some more changes might be in the future…if the district continues to grow.
“The (Administration) building is designed that if we would need additional growth you could add on an additional section (besides the newly completed classrooms) that would almost mirror the (administration) building,” 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.
“I am thankful for all the work Toliver has done on this,” noted Lindsay. “Change is always a hard thing, but it’s also good.”
