Facilities consultants present results to District 518 board

• District 518

District 518

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — Facilities consultants Tom Tapper and Dave Maroney, who have worked with District 518 over the past several months to identify options for accommodating the district’s expanding student population, reported their recommendations at Tuesday night’s monthly school board meeting.

“Our bottom line is that you’ve done great work in researching the possibilities, and your administrators have tried to maximize the use of your facilities,” said Tapper of ATS&R Planners/Architects/Engineers.

“We saw the headlines in your newspaper today about a housing shortage here, and the growth in Worthington’s population is very real. Your middle and high schools are virtually at capacity. But you have viable options with any of the four choices considered.”

Beginning last year, when Superintendent John Landgaard and the District 518 board conducted a series of focus group meetings attended by about 80 community members, various facilities configurations were discussed.

“We’ll need to have a work session of some type for the board to have conversations about this in January,” Landgaard said following the meeting. “There have been no decisions whatsoever made yet, and we need to set some type of direction for this.”

About 15 people — parents, farmers, retirees — were most active in recent task force meetings on the facilities question, which boiled down to four primary choices at various price-points.

The options range from a brand-new high school to a remodeled high school coupled with a new 3-5 intermediate building on property already owned by District 518 near Prairie Elementary.

Tapper and Maroney explained the proposed costs (roughly $33 to $46 million, depending on the choice) did not include increased operating expenses for bigger and/or new buildings.

“There is a range of additional annual operating costs to consider— from $310,000 to $630,000, depending on the choices — to consider,” Maroney said.

If the District 518 board agreed soon enough on an option in time to move forward with an April 2013 referendum, construction of a new building could begin as soon as next summer, with the goal of opening the structure for the 2014-15 academic year.

“But if the referendum is next November or at a later date, you’d be looking at opening for the 2015-16 academic year,” Maroney said.

“The two main messages we’ve heard are affordability for this community, and that people think a new high school is the best option, but they don’t think it will work here,” Tapper said. “We believe your current high school is a sound facility, although it is land-locked, and it would cost 20 to 30 percent less to build a new intermediate school.”

Enrollment projections used by ATS&R for facilities determinations look ahead five years, which is the most reliable length of time for such estimation, Maroney said. Still, at least two school board members were concerned if that was a long enough view.

“Will this investment get us 20 years out, or will we be in the same position before too long?” asked Steve Schnieder.

Added Linden Olson, “What is the maximum total student population these building options will handle?”

Maroney assured the board that all of the building options “are designed to grow or convert as needed.”

On a 5-2 vote later in the meeting, the board approved the proposed Teacher Early Retirement Incentive Memorandum of Understanding, which will offer qualifying teachers who retire in 2013 an extra $5,000 per year for five years in Health Savings Accounts.

Mark Shepherd and Scott Rosenberg dissented, although Landgaard said Worthington’s Education Minnesota chapter approved the proposal last week. Both Shepherd and Landgaard said they were not sure it was in the best interest of students to have a greater number of beginning teachers on staff simultaneously, and they didn’t see the need to pay out more money to teachers who might already be planning to retire.

“I don’t approve of the concept of paying people not to work,” Shepherd said.

Board chair Brad Shaffer offered, “We can’t assume all the retiring teachers will be replaced with new, green teachers.”

Landgaard reported that installation of the new scoreboard in the WHS gymnasium would be completed soon, and he thanked the several custodians who did extra work on the project.

In addition, Landgaard said the Flexible Learning Year 2 application was in the process of being prepared for presentation at the January board meeting. He also mentioned the North Central Accreditation team would assess District 518 from March 17-20, 2013, as the district was last reviewed for accreditation purposes five years ago.

“It should be a good review of how we’ve moved forward in the last five years,” said Landgaard of the accreditation appointment.

Other meeting action included unanimous board approval of its consent agenda and several other annual action items. The District 518 Truth in Taxation hearing was also hosted; no community members attended to hear Director of Business Management David Skog’s 15-minute presentation on the district’s funding percentages or proposed 7.02 percent levy for the coming year.

“I’m open to questions,” Skog offered, but none were posed.

In other business, the District 518 board heard from Nate Hanson of the Alternative Learning Center about the benefits of an online learning program and of the need for a full-time teacher at the Middle Level Alternative Program. The learning device pilot program was also discussed, and the board agreed to purchase new math curriculum for the high school at the WHS math department’s recommendation.

The District 518 board will hold its annual school board reorganization meeting at 7 a.m. Jan. 4; the board’s next regular meeting is slated for Jan. 15 at 5:15 p.m. in the WHS media center.

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