Space constraints at BP Schools prompt survey

The Blooming Prairie School Board recently authorized a public survey to gauge the community's interest in a possible school referendum.
At the June 21 school board meeting, Superintendent Chris Staloch said about 500 people will be randomly chosen to take the survey, which will be conducted over the phone in early July.
The Long-Range Planning Committee (LRPC) recommended the survey to the school board because of the  school district's projected growth.
A demographic study conducted by Hazel Reinhardt Consulting found that the district's enrollment could increase by as much as 126 students in 10 years.
Due to that growth, Wold Architects and Engineers partner Vaughn Dierks said the elementary school, which already is dealing with two displaced rooms, will soon face even more challenges.
"In the future, two to three more of those [rooms] are going to be displaced based on that number of kids that you have coming in so that's going to continue to put pressure on that building," he said.
In addition, Dierks said the elementary school's early childhood/Pre-K programming is limited by capacity and its special education will need three rooms in the future. It currently has two.
Meanwhile, the high school's career and technical education room needs space improvements, Dierks said. There's little to no "personalized learning space" or flex space, scheduling conflicts between sports teams using the gym and performing arts using the stage and special education needs four rooms for the future.
Some of the recommendations that Dierks and the LRPC came up with to address the high school's challenges include physical upgrades to the career and technical education space, a classroom and flexible learning space addition, a gym addition, and a performing arts addition.
On top of those additions or renovations, Dierks and the LRPC recommend moving fifth and sixth grade to the high school building to ease the burden of not having enough rooms at the elementary school.
Their recommendations for the elementary school include: adding toilets to kindergarten rooms, renovating the special education rooms as needed, relocating art so it's adjacent to media and accommodating a computer lab within the building.
If all of the recommended renovations were made to the elementary school and high school, the estimated combined cost would be $33,840,000.
Why should all the renovations and additions be made at the same time? Dierks said, "I think when we got to prioritization, these people looked at the different options and said, 'We really can't do one and not address the other one.' They're so connected in terms of what the problem is here that it makes sense to look at doing it altogether."