Champlin High seeks money for makeover

Champlin Park High School administrators are quick to praise their building, which opened in 1992.

They are equally quick to say it's in dire need of some big decor changes to make it feel more like a home and less like an institution to its almost 3,200 students.

"There's nothing that makes it unique to Champlin Park," said Assistant Principal Gerry Hegna. "It's a beautiful, naked building."

What Hegna and Champlin Park Principal Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed want is to give their building, located on the border of Brooklyn Park and Champlin, a personality makeover. The problem is there isn't the money to do it. So the school is looking for donations.

Mhiripiri-Reed and Hegna want more display cases to highlight student work and achievement, and more flags of all the nations represented by the school's students. More banners would be good, as would a stone sign on the corner of Douglas Drive and 109th Avenue N.

The lockers, chipped and scratched after years of being banged around, need a paint job. The fieldhouse floor, which has darkened considerably since it was installed, needs refinishing. An electronic announcement sign for the cafeteria, like the one Mhiripiri-Reed saw at South High in Minneapolis, would also be nice.

None of these things is structurally essential. A decoration drive would go a long way, however, toward adding a little luster to a school that Mhiripiri-Reed and Hegna confess has the bare-bones feel of a big school in Anywhere USA.

"Sometimes, when you go into the academic wings, it's just brick walls and open doors," Mhiripiri-Reed said. "If we had a way of displaying student art right in the front we'd be wowing the public. We have fantastic artists here."

The goal, Mhiripiri-Reed said, is to make Champlin Park "a nice, comfortable place to be."

Hegna said that when the building was constructed it came with just a few trophy cases, but those are located far from the main entrances, in the athletic fieldhouse, and between the fieldhouse and auditorium. Currently, those contain athletic and music trophies and other awards. Mhiripiri-Reed and Hegna want more cases, especially in the main entryways. In two entryways stand lone display cases, funded by school donations last year. One features the 2008 football team, which was conference champion and section runner-up this year.

A start to the spiffing up

Recently, the school has been able to spruce things up a bit. Welcome flags are now hanging from the light posts outside the building. A few banners have been affixed to the walls. International flags are now hanging in the cafeteria. Mhiripiri-Reed and Hegna say that's a start, but only that.

Mhiripiri-Reed said she's put many of her spruce-up ideas on her district funding wish list, but knows other needs take priority; for instance, the school just got a new roof last summer. School officials have gotten some daunting estimates on some of their projects. Resurfacing the fieldhouse floor, for example, would cost anywhere from $30,000 to $35,000. Painting all the lockers would run about $20,000.

"We just don't have that kind of money," Mhiripiri-Reed said.

It's tough to get corporations to help administrators because they're usually looking for something in return, such as doing some advertising in the school. That, Mhiripiri-Reed said, is tightly restricted by the district. She said she might try to start linking the school website to a separate Champlin Park alumni site in the hopes of getting donations from some of the school's past graduates.

Can a school made more attractive work as a catalyst to make students perform better?

"I want to say yes, but if you ask me to prove it, I can't prove it," Hegna said. "I believe student pride and student identity does make a difference."

"We just don't have one spot where we can focus our fine arts, our sports and our activities, and say, 'Come and celebrate,' " Hegna said.