Rosemount district talks facilities in preparation for tax request

Parent Jenica Erbes Spoor said she loves Glacier Hills Elementary, a magnet school in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district. But she didn't like it when the science lab had to move to make space for a kindergarten room this fall. She hopes the school will expand soon.

Scott LaGrange, who has a kindergartner, finds it "disconcerting" that students in grades K-3 are left out of the district's new 1:1 technology plan.

Both parents weighed in on the district's facilities, technology and security measures as part of a recent focus group at Rosemount Middle School.

The groups are part of a districtwide process, led by a facilities and equipment task force, of collecting input as the district prepares for a tax request that will likely be on the ballot in 2015.

The task force will make recommendations to the school board in late February, said Jeff Solomon the district's director of finance and operations and task force chair.

"We've been very pleased with the amount of participation we've had and the level of discussion," said Solomon.

So far, district officials have gathered that they are seriously short on space, having made room for 22 all-day kindergarten classrooms this fall. And the expiration of the current technology levy at the end of 2015 adds urgency to the situation, said Superintendent Jane Berenz.

Before that, a $30 million operating levy passed in 2005. In 2004, a $1.2-million-a-year capital projects levy and a $58 million bond referendum passed.

Many districts are going out for referendums in 2015, including Edina, South Washington County and Burnsville-Eagan-Savage.

Those requests range from a $65 million bond referendum plus a $2.5-million levy in Burnsville to an up-to-$180-million-bond referendum in South Washington County, Berenz said.

The district's request would probably be between those two amounts, she said.

Most likely, the district will place both a capital projects levy and a bond referendum on the ballot, Solomon said.

Administrators would like to provide preschool to more students, but the district lacks the space to do so. Currently 14 percent of preschool-aged kids are enrolled in preschool programs, compared to 25 to 30 percent in nearby districts, said Julie Olson, director of elementary education.

Because the district's magnet schools are popular, they are "bursting at the seams," Berenz said.

The district's three STEM schools also need better learning spaces.

All in all, 41 new classrooms are needed to accommodate current students and the slight enrollment increase that a demographer predicted.

LaGrange and Spoor agreed that the district needs to address capacity issues. Spoor said space was her biggest concern.

On the district's south side, there are many booming housing developments, said LaGrange, with enough kids to necessitate a whole new elementary school. He hopes the district invests in permanent fixes such as new schools, rather than Band-Aids.

One option would be to build a new elementary and then update boundaries, said Solomon. But that would create just 30 new rooms, he noted, making it only part of the solution.

Another area of need is technology, as the district will need additional funding to implement its new plan, Berenz said.

This year, 47 classrooms are trying out devices like iPad Minis to measure how they affect student performance and to come up with some "best practices" for teachers, said Solomon.

Next year will be another "beta testing" year, followed by rolling out devices to all students in grades 8, 9 and 10 in 2016-17.

The district's infrastructure will need updates, which means increasing Wi-Fi capacity at all schools.

Parents in one focus group had opposing views on the district's technology plan, as well as the usefulness of technology in schools generally. One parent noted it was difficult for her child to have access to an iPad Mini first semester but have it taken away at the trial's end.

Many districts are updating safety and security measures, especially the way that traffic flows in and out of schools, said Solomon.

At elementary and middle schools, remodeling will route visitors to the front office. High schools will have an electronic sign-in system.

Every school will install emergency-response buttons and update outdated security cameras, and some parking lots will be rearranged so they are safer for all.

LaGrange noted that while security cameras are a good tool, they don't help if no one monitors them.

The group debated the usefulness of checking IDs electronically at the high school, with some saying it should be done at all schools and others wondering if the practice violated visitors' privacy.

In each of the three nights of focus groups last week, dozens of attendees showed up. In a Rosemount Middle School group, parents and one student raised a range of issues, from inequity between school buildings — one parent commented, "Geez, we're in the dump in Rosemount" — to space concerns at high schools.

Many praised the district's excellent teachers, though a few said their children had had less-than-positive experiences.

Of about a dozen group members, the vast majority said they would vote in favor of a referendum.