The current referendum proposal addresses needs as identified by way of a school facilities study and the district’s new strategic plan, which calls for facilities improvement. The needs generally fall into one of two categories.

The Need

Classroom / Safety & Security

Classroom Needs

  • Career and Technology, music, physical education and special education classrooms are short on space, or located in places that disrupt other classrooms.

  • Enrollment increases have put elementary classrooms at near capacity.

In short, additional classroom space is needed to provide an appropriate learning environment. 

Safety and Security Needs

  • Currently, students must mix with traffic at drop off and pick-up time, creating a hazardous situation. 

  • Security is compromised during special events because the school’s existing configuration does not allow us to cordon off classrooms from public spaces.

  • The 80-year-old auditorium has accessibility issues and is too small, leaving attendees standing in aisles and side spaces.

The “Smart, Safe, Strong” bond referendum would make a difference in preparing our students for 21st Century challenges by addressing classroom needs, along with safety and security.

Grade 6-12 - CRITICAL Classroom Needs

Career and Technical Education

We have two career and technical education (CTE) teachers, but only one lab space. This severely limits the ability to provide the hands-on learning opportunities that this instruction is meant to provide. 

CTE exposes students to a wide variety of career opportunities and helps them develop skills that are in high demand, giving them a competitive edge in the job market. 

CTE programs also help students develop soft skills like critical thinking, communication, and teamwork. Students have growing interest in the program – one class recently won a regional award for the Best Agriculture Program. 

The District has a business teacher that has started an apparel printing and designing shop within one of her classes and has 3 heat presses and would potentially add more equipment if the space existed. This has allowed the district to provide apparel for many local community businesses, serving a local need while students learn how to run a business. They would like to expand this concept to other forms of entrepreneurship that will ultimately lead to the next generation of business owners in the community. 

Gymnasium

There are three issues with gym space. 

  1. Security/accessibility - the current competition gymnasium is in the middle of the school. Anyone attending an event in the gym has free access to anywhere in the building - we’re unable to cordon off hallways because parking for events occurs all around the building, meaning visitors are accessing the building through multiple entrances and using all of the hallways to get to the gym. 

  2. Limited space for physical education classes. During the day, the main gym is divided into two instructional spaces. As elementary enrollment has grown, the elementary gym is too small to accommodate a larger number of students, so it limits the number of students that can be in a gym class at the same time, which limits the amount of time students can receive physical education instruction. The small gym by the auditorium provides some space, but it is too small for some physical education activities, and is far from the rest of the classrooms, cutting into instruction time. 

  3. Proposed renovation would eliminate the small gym by the auditorium, reducing the amount of phy ed classroom space.

Auditorium

The existing 80-year-old auditorium is very outdated and has multiple handicap accessibility issues. 

The seating capacity is less than 500. Many events have attendees standing in aisles and side spaces. 

The space has been adapted to work as well as possible, but site lines are poor, backstage storage for theater and events is limited, and performers are so close to the stage that some can only be seen from the front row.

Sound, lighting, and acoustics are outdated, and the seats are small and uncomfortable.

Grades PreK-5 - CRITICAL Classroom Needs

Special Education:

The incidence of students with special needs is growing. When our school was built, students with special needs did not attend school. Federal law has now required us to provide special education for 50 years.

Hands-on learning spaces:

The current space is too small, so it limits the number of students that can be in a music class at the same time, which limits the amount of time students can receive music instruction. The same is true for art classes.

Early childhood education:

The current early childhood program is at capacity, offering a half-day program to Osakis families, without space for expansion in enrollment or in the length of time students can be served. Many school districts provide all-day, every-day fee based early childhood programming. The benefits include, more robust instructional opportunities for students at a time when their window for learning capacity is wide open, building a familiarity with the school and staff to ease the transition to kindergarten, and providing one-stop child care opportunities to families.

Music, art:

Hands-on learning spaces, or “maker space”, is a relatively new, but extremely valuable education learning environment that is used all-day, every-day by elementary classes working on group projects using special equipment such as electronics, robots, and more. We use a STEAM approach (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) that exposes students to concepts that are continued in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program at the secondary level. We have carved out some hands-on learning spaces in media center, but the space is open, meaning noise from the classes is disruptive for others using the media center. We plan to reconfigure the media center space to enclose hands-on learning spaces. Smaller spaces would also be enclosed to allow individual students to take online elective classes from teachers outside of the district, and small-group space to enhance project learning with technology like video and audio recording.

Interested in reading more about the facility needs? Click on the links below for recent reports:

From the Minnesota School Safety Center - click for PDF