Finally, District 196 office will be updated

Sarah Lemagie, Star Tribune

The District 196 main office, originally meant to be a warehouse, will be renovated starting this spring with money left over from a school bond referendum.

When the disctrict renovates, classrooms come first. Now, after a long wait, the superintendent's office gets its turn.

By SARAH LEMAGIE, Star Tribune

Last update: January 9, 2008 - 5:58 PM

When the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district started work in 1972 on what is now the district's main office, the building was meant to be a warehouse.

More than three decades later, Superintendent John Currie and many employees of Minnesota's fourth-largest school district keep their desks in the metal-sided, nearly windowless building, which visitors sometimes confuse with the bus barn next door. As the district has grown over the years, "we've just kept shoehorning people in," Currie said. These days, some workers are sharing offices the size of glorified closets, while others have spilled over into a former storage room at nearby Dakota Ridge School.

District 196 is hardly the only Minnesota school district with a main office sorely in need of an upgrade, though some smaller districts that have built or renovated more recently house department heads in comparative palaces.

"When we're raising money for schools, the higher priority typically is classrooms," said Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators. It's also easier to persuade voters to spend money on schools than on the superintendent's office, Kyte and Currie agreed,

The result: Especially when districts grow quickly, "sometimes the district offices get left behind a little bit," Kyte said.

Finally, this spring District 196 plans a major project. "It is a functional building and no more than that," said Currie. "Even at that, if it weren't for a couple of key factors, I don't know that we'd be doing this now."

Here's one key factor: The steel corrugated siding on the building is starting to fall apart. Here's another: The district just wrapped up the last of the school renovations and upgrades planned with a $68 million bond referendum passed in 2004, and it has about $2 million left over.

The district office renovation wasn't on the list of improvements that voters approved in 2004, but school projects came in under budget and the district earned interest on the bond money.

Using leftover money is a strategy Kyte said he has seen other districts use to fund administration building improvements. "Typically, it will not be the lead thing that anybody is asking for on a bond referendum," he said.

The district emphasized that the main office renovation comes only after a long list of school projects it planned with the $68 million. "We've done everything we said we were going to do with the referendum dollars," said district spokesman Tony Taschner, including major additions at Rosemount, Eagan and Apple Valley high schools. The district also updated 10 elementary school media centers and spent money upgrading things such as school heating and ventilation systems. When those projects were done and money was left over, the school board approved additions at Cedar Park, Southview and Echo Park elementary schools.

Then came the district office renovation. The project will cost $2 million or $3 million, with money not covered by the referendum coming from a facilities fund. The district plans to replace the building's exterior, reconfigure the roof, and gut and redesign the interior.

The work is much needed, but even so, "We wouldn't be talking about doing this, obviously, if we didn't have funds that were available through the bond referendum," Taschner said.

Sarah Lemagie • 612-673-7557

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