At their regular meeting last Thursday, the St. Cloud Board of Education approved a motion which would allow the district administration to take the preliminary steps towards a $12,000,000 district expansion program that would include $4,500,000 for 10 new classrooms and other facilities at Clearview Elementary School in Clear Lake, clearing the way for expansion to a K-8 facility there.
In his March report, Chairman Gerald Von Korff said the board had not been asked to approve the actual construction project at the recent meeting, but rather to provide the district administration with a sense of the attitude of the board to the overall project before it began investing time and money on the preparatory work.
Von Korff also stated the Clearview K-8 proposal would have “the greatest impact on the way we deliver programming and the configuration of the district”, and so will require “the most careful diligence.” He also said parents and Clear Lake community members should have input on the decision, as well as other areas of the district that would be impacted.
Issues the administration will need to consider include the following: (1.) What is the likely number of students who would attend the added grade levels at Clearview? (2.) Are there parents who would prefer their students attend South? (3.) How would the Immersion program be delivered at Clearview, and what complications might arise in keeping two additional Immersion grades there? (4.) What was learned from the Kennedy K-8 experiment, and are those lessons transferrable to Clearview? (5.) What are the budgetary impacts on providing K-8 at Clearview? (6.) Will the program at Clearview provide a robust, high-quality, attractive program for the students likely to attend?
A calendar of “decision points” will be published in the near future, Von Korff said, which will provide parents and district residents with places, dates and times at which they will be able to provide input to the school district administration and the school board.
Another project at Clearview would involve the conversion of the current steam boilers to hot water, which would cost an estimated $5,000,000. Eight other St. Cloud schools would receive similar conversions, with a total cost of $46,000,000 listed in the preliminary estimate. A number of other health and safety improvements are also under consideration, all of which would result in significant long-term savings to the district in terms of energy use.
Administrators again stressed that the projects are in the “very early stages” at this point, and that the district will be heavily influenced by the input of parents and district residents as the process moves forward.
