Schools

Minnetonka District To Build 13 Elementary Classrooms

The new classrooms will get the schools ready for all-day Kindergarten paid for by the state. They will also return music rooms back to music use instead on "music on a cart."

The Minnetonka School District will build 13 new elementary classrooms at five schools to prepare for free all-day Kindergarten that begins next school year.

Three rooms will be added at Clear SpringsMinnewashta and Scenic HeightsDeephaven and Groveland will each get two rooms. It was decided that Excelsior is currently ready to implement all-day Kindergarten as is.

At its November School Board Meeting, the Board approved the construction the new classrooms.

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This action is intended to achieve three goals, according to the Board:  
  1. To provide necessary classrooms required for the change from Half-Day to All-Day Kindergarten as approved by the Minnesota Legislature in 2013, and then by the Minnetonka School Board for implementation in 2014-15. With the passage of All-Day Kindergarten, the Legislature provided authorization for the School Board to fund construction of classroom facilities. They provided both an increase in per pupil operating funds and the capital funding tools to construct classrooms.
  2. To return music classrooms to music use; some music teachers are traveling to classrooms that are not designed for music instruction.  The “music on a cart” is inconsistent with the Board’s goal of developing a world-class fine arts program, it results in lost instructional time with students, and it interrupts prep-time and time for parent phone calls for classroom teachers.
  3. To maintain the existing number of sections at each grade level as they progress through the school in accordance with the District’s long-term enrollment plan and avoid a reduction of $2,914,416 in revenue over six years for the five classrooms involved. 
In 2013, the District reduced Kindergarten by two sections due to space limitations at a cost of lost revenue of over $1.2 million for six years.   

Long-term, the Board has decided that the District needs to recapture those two sections and plan for continuity at each grade level into the future.  

By 2015, the District will need all five additional classrooms just to maintain current grade level enrollments. These rooms are not needed to increase enrollment but to preserve the existing enrollment and revenue, according to the District. 

Three factors helped make the decision to do this construction now instead of waiting for 2016.
  • Economy of scale: It is less expensive to do one larger construction project than two smaller ones during different years.
  • Interest rates have been and are still extremely low. There is no guarantee they will remain low.
  • Construction costs are still very competitive. 
The District’s finance office conducted a study of the cost versus return on investment for classroom construction this year. The study shows that a new classroom pays for itself in two years when calculating the per student revenue that classroom generates. 


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