By Joanna Miller, Correspondent
The Prior Lake-Savage Area School District Growth Task Force is continuing to analyze growth options in the aftermath of the failed 2007 bond referendum and has come full circle in terms of options for Prior Lake High School.
Members still believe the best option to alleviate expected overcrowding at Prior Lake High School is to build a 10,000-square-foot addition. Estimates show overpopulation will likely occur by the 2011-12 school year.
However, last year’s fall bond referendum has caused the group to analyze other options and to reach out to the public for additional feedback on the plan.
Superintendent Tom Westerhaus said that even though the Task Force has come to the same conclusion, “they want to hear what the community has to say,” in regards to support for an addition to the school.
Westerhaus said he thinks the conclusion is the same because the needs have remained constant; the only change in the Task Force’s process has been reflecting on the failed referendum.
About 30 community members have participated on the Task Force.
The $28.9 million addition represents less than one-third of the current building in size and costs, according to Wold Architects and Engineers. Construction costs have increased by about 6 percent annually since 2003.
The potential addition would increase capacity at PLHS from 2,000 students to 2,600 students, a 28 percent increase in square footage. The 100,000-square-foot addition would bring the total size of PLHS to 435,000 square feet.
The Task Force contrasted this plan with the option to build a second high school that would hold 1,200 students. With the purchase of land and building costs, that option was estimated at $71 million to $74 million.
If the PLHS addition concept is approved by voters, the Task Force agreed it should consider how to speed up construction plans, so the district wouldn’t also incur costs for temporary solutions for teaching space, Westerhaus said.
Last fall’s failed referendum has also made it important to the group to look at worse-case scenarios to operate the high school should a request for funding an addition fails again.
To that end, the group has gathered information on going rates for leasing space.
The Task Force has also looked at other options to accommodate the growing student population, such as year-round school. It discovered that the capacity of a building can be increased by about 25 percent, but this also created transportation and schedule concerns, and an increase in operational costs of about 25 percent.
The split-shift model, where students work in a morning and afternoon shift, pushed activity schedules into the evening, which wasn’t a popular option, either.
The Task Force has invited the community for a listening session on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. at the District Services Center, 4540 Tower St., S.E., Prior Lake, for an update on the information.
Specifically, the Task Force has also reached out to members of Citizens for Accountable Government, an organization that spoke out against the plan during last fall’s referendum, to ask for their feedback and thoughts.
To go
The Growth Task Force invites the public to learn about the Prior Lake-Savage Area School’s growth-planning process at a session on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. at the District Services Center, 4540 Tower St. S.E., Prior Lake. For more information, call (952) 226-0014. E-mail feedback to input@priorlake-savage.k12.mn.us [1].
Joanna Miller can be reached at jmiller@swpub.com.