To handle an influx of students, two K-5 elementary schools in the Anoka-Hennepin district will have to expand before the new school year.
Additional kindergartners are projected next fall at Ramsey Elementary School in Ramsey, which already is at capacity. To handle the growth, seven teaching classrooms will be added to the neighboring Wilson Elementary in Anoka, and some kindergartners from the Ramsey area will go there.
Elsewhere in the district, officials anticipate that 4,000 new homes will be built in Blaine's Johnsville Elementary attendance area over the next 15 years. Plans are in place to build a 14,000-square-foot addition to the school.
Bids for both projects will open on Feb. 17, with construction to begin as soon as March and completed before the start of the 2015-16 school year.
Wilson Elementary School
The Anoka City Council approved a $6 million site plan and conditional use permit to expand Wilson Elementary, in the eastern part of the city.
The plan calls for a one-story, 10,900-sqaure-foot addition to help handle more than 150 kindergartners coming from the Ramsey Elementary attendance area, said Steven Anderson, director of buildings and grounds for the Anoka-Hennepin School District.
The project will include seven regular classrooms and two specialty rooms. In addition, seven new teachers will be hired, Anderson said.
With a current enrollment of 1,360 students, Ramsey is the largest elementary school in the district, and "we didn't feel it was beneficial to make it an even larger site," he said.
