What's new in your high school?

Farmington High School tops the list, but the brand-new building isn't the only thing that's new in south-metro districts this fall. Is your high school starting a soccer team? Cracking down on students lingering in the halls after school? Fixing up an old riverboat? To find out, turn to AA2.

APPLE VALLEY

Principal: Steve Degenaar

Expected enrollment: 2,015

It's a small change, but one thing students at Apple Valley High School may notice this fall is the new sound system in the cafeteria, which means they can listen to music during lunch, Degenaar said.

The school is also offering a new class in anatomy and physiology, as well as literacy classes -- mostly for seniors and freshmen -- who need extra help passing state reading and writing tests.

Routine upgrades include new furniture in the library, 65 lab computers and about 40 miles of network cable, Degenaar said.

ARTECH

Principal: Simon Tyler

Expected enrollment: 126, grades 6-12

A group of students at the Northfield School of Arts and Technology will keep working on a big project started last year: fixing up an old riverboat. The boat will be at the center of many science lessons this year, and it will give kids a chance to learn about the Mississippi River, Tyler said. The students have no immediate plans to get the craft back in the water, he added. "They have ambitions to do that, but there's a lot of work to be done on the boat before that would come to fruition."

Another group is checking out the possibility of building a greenhouse at the school.

The school is also expanding its special education program to give students more support in the transition from high school to college or the workplace.

BELLE PLAINE

Principal: Lowell Hoffman

Expected enrollment: 720, grades 7-12

New courses in marketing and management, music history, pre-engineering and AP environmental science are on the menu at Belle Plaine High School, Hoffman said.

Junior high students, who go to class in the same building, will also have a social worker full time instead of part time.

BURNSVILLE

Principal: Dave Helke

Expected enrollment: 2,360, grades 10-12

Students in a new magnet program will split their days between Burnsville High School and the city's nearby performing arts center. Envision Academy of the Arts, one of four new magnet programs in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district, focuses on dance, music and theater. Students in grades 9-11 will attend this fall, with the program expanding to include seniors next year.

Business students will run a new café at the high school's senior campus, with staffing help from local senior citizens. The café will probably come in handy for many of the school's seniors, who will have less time this fall to travel between the main building and the senior campus over lunch. The break is getting shorter because the school needs kids to be spending as much time as possible in class, Helke said.

On Friday, the school will dedicate its new artificial turf field, which was put in over the summer. The school is the fifth in the Lake Conference to add the turf, a purchase that's sometimes controversial among local taxpayers. The Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district says the new turf, which cost $794,000, is safer for athletes, costs less to maintain and can be used more often than a grass field.

The school's front entrance and weight room have been renovated, and a cable TV studio that opened last spring will get a lot more student use this fall.

Burnsville also is expanding the pre-engineering courses it offers through Project Lead the Way, and adding a new college-level public speaking class.

EAGAN

Principal: Polly Reikowski

Expected enrollment: 2,220

A tweak to Eagan High School's calendar will give targeted help to struggling students and enrichment to those who are doing well, said Assistant Principal Peter Zak. The school is introducing "Wildcat Flex Week" during the fourth and ninth weeks of every trimester. Class schedules during each of those weeks will be shifted to allow for one 90-minute session that the school will use to help prevent students from failing.

Eagan is also adding a college-level anatomy and physiology class, Zak said.

FARMINGTON

Principal: Ben Kusch

Expected enrollment: 1,750

What's not new at Farmington High School?

School officials have been combing through checklists all summer, getting ready to open the brand-new high school this week. "In some ways, it's just like building a house," Kusch said. "You just don't know how things are going to function until you move in."

Ninth-graders will be joining upperclassmen at the new school this fall, but they used to go to Farmington Middle School West. That means this year's crop of sophomores will be starting high school along with the freshmen, Kusch pointed out. "Over half of the building is new to high school," he said.

High school students will also be following a new schedule. Instead of semesters with seven periods in a day, the school calendar will be divided into trimesters with five-period days. First period at the high school will start at 8:20 a.m. instead of last year's 7:35 a.m.

Lacrosse will be added as a varsity sport in the spring.

JORDAN

Principal: Mark Ruggeberg

Expected enrollment: 520

Teachers at Jordan High School will team up in grade-level groups called "professional learning communities" as part of a new approach to tracking student progress, Ruggeberg said. They'll read new research and use test-score data to identify and help students who are struggling in reading and math.

Because of budget cuts, students who take vocational education classes in Chaska will have to provide their own transportation, Ruggeberg said.

The school is also adding a new sports management class in place of a business law class that was "dying out," he said.

LAKEVILLE NORTH

Principal: Marne Berkvam

Expected enrollment: 1,820

"Construction, construction, construction. That's been the name of the game up here all summer," Berkvam said. Improvements at Lakeville North run from a new roof to a gym floor, running track and parking lot.

The school is also launching a pilot program this fall called Support Our Students (SOS), which will connect kids who need it with resources such as a mental health social worker and the Community Action Council.

LAKEVILLE SOUTH

Principal: Scott Douglas

Expected enrollment: 1,870

Two new computer-based remediation classes -- also offered at Lakeville North -- will help students who are falling behind in math and reading, Douglas said. The programs, Read 180 and Plato Math, target lessons to students' weaknesses.

The two high schools are also expanding Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), a national program that helps middle-of-the-road scholars get ready for college.

NEW PRAGUE

Principal: Tom Doig

Expected enrollment: 1,170

Soccer is going on the roster of varsity sports at New Prague High School this fall, with teams for boys and girls.

The school is offering several new classes, including a college-level biology course and introductory engineering.

NORTHFIELD

Principal: Joel Leer

Expected enrollment: 1,300

Classes will start an hour later than usual on Wednesdays at Northfield High School this fall, a schedule change that will carve out time for teachers to collaborate, Leer said. Buses will run at the regular times, though, and there will be supervised activities at school for students who arrive early, he said.

The school is also starting a ninth-grade academy to offer extra academic support for about 20 percent of its freshmen, he said. Students in the program will take science, social studies and English together, much as middle-school classes are often grouped in "houses."

Project Lead the Way, a national pre-engineering program, is expanding at the school. Students can also take new courses in 3D animation, aerobics and AP government, as well as an online fitness class.

PRIOR LAKE

Principal: Dave Lund

Expected enrollment: 2,225

High school students will be able to sleep in a bit this fall after the Prior Lake-Savage school board approved a new bus schedule that gets them to class later in the morning. Prior Lake High School will start at 8:05 a.m. instead of 7:15 a.m., with classes ending at 3 p.m. The switch also affects the district's younger students, many of whom will be starting earlier this year.

The district is also opening an alternative learning center (ALC) this fall for students who are at risk of not graduating from high school. Lund guessed that 60 or 80 students living in the district have been turning to ALCs in other districts, online programs or schools such as Sobriety High School. The new Bridges ALC, located in the Northgate Center on Franklin Trail in Prior Lake, will have about 40 students this fall.

ROSEMOUNT

Principal: John Wollersheim

Expected enrollment: 2,069

Rosemount freshmen got a little extra breathing room on their first day this fall as part of an effort to smooth the transition to high school. Ninth-graders reported to school at the normal time and began their schedules with empty hallways, with older students joining them at fifth period.

The school's track was replaced this summer, and a program to help students succeed in class will be offered to sophomores as well as freshmen this year, Wollersheim said.

The school will begin offering advanced sports marketing, AP chemistry and a strength training and conditioning class for women, which instructors came up with because they had noticed few girls signed up for the co-ed version of that course, Wollersheim said. Rosemount's powerhouse music department also is starting another class -- a wind symphony -- partly because so many students participate that bands were getting too big for the available practice space, he said.

SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Principal: Dan Bodette

Expected enrollment: 410 in grades 11 and 12

A second wind turbine could soon join the one that stands near the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, Bodette said. It's not a sure thing, but a group has approached the school about the possibility of erecting the turbine, which would produce energy for the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District, he said. Bodette declined to name the group and said it was too early to talk about details, but he did say the turbine would probably have a "very different" design than the existing one, and that it would be paid for by private resources and grants.

As many as 60 of the school's students are enrolling from outside the district this fall, up from 20 or 30 three years ago, he said.

The school, which often refines its curriculum to reflect new research and hot topics in environmental studies, will put extra emphasis this year on climate change and alternative energy, he said.

SHAKOPEE

Principal: Jim Murphy

Expected enrollment: 1,320 in grades 10-12

An environmentally friendly outdoor science lab could spring up next to Shakopee High School in the next year, Murphy said. Lowe's Home Improvement gave the school a $50,000 grant in May to build the lab, with the condition that the school match the award within a year. Construction students at the school will build the standalone building, which could include features such as a greenhouse and solar panels, Murphy said. The school probably won't break ground on the project until spring, he said.

Shakopee students can take several new classes, including college-level courses in human anatomy, public speaking and nursing assistance.

Starting this fall, students who aren't at the high school for an organized activity or tutoring must be out of the building by 4 p.m. The new rule will make sure that kids aren't hanging out when the school can't provide adequate supervision, Murphy said.

Shakopee also will enforce a new rule that ends the practice of letting spectators in for free after halftime at sporting events. Instead, ticket sales will go through the end of play. The policy, which applies to all high school sports where admission is charged, was passed by the school board as a crowd-control measure.

SIMLEY

Principal: Gerald Sakala

Expected enrollment: 1,200

Simley High School students will switch from a system that measures their grade-point averages on a 12.0 scale to the more common 4.0 scale, Sakala said. The school will also begin phasing in a new ranking system that takes into account how many honors courses students have taken, he said. Many schools "weight" GPAs -- with an "A" in an honors class counting for 5 points on the 4.0 scale, for example -- but that's not what Simley is doing, he said. Instead, students who earn at least 22 honors or AP credits by the time they graduate will be eligible to have their GPAs ranked in a separate group with other honors students. The school will determine its top 10 scholars using that list, Sakala said.

The Inver Grove Heights school complex also got a new parking lot in front of the middle school this summer.

School officials at Eastview and Montgomery-Lonsdale high schools could not be reached for an update on the 2009-10 school year.

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016