Site LogIQ, the facility planning, design and management company, presented their findings from their building evaluations at the school board meeting this week. The detailed analysis included assessments of the facilities, equipment and physical needs of the buildings with the main focus on the physical buildings throughout the district. 

Nels Onstad, Senior Business Consultant with SiteLogIQ gave the presentation regarding mechanical, electrical, plumbing and several other pieces of information that the survey found including maps, charts and graphs that depicted CO2 levels, airflow and temperatures in various parts of the buildings. “Overall, the high school is in good shape, some equipment will need to be replaced in the next few years, but nothing urgent,” he said.

The pool, however, is an ongoing expense. Since 2015, the district has spent over $480,000 to maintain the pool. It’s currently being used for community education and physical education classes. “The pool is set up as a competition pool and we have very hard well water. The mechanics of it are 30 years old, but it has been well taken care of,” said Chip Rankin. SiteLogIQ proposed reconditioning the system and providing corrosion control. 

The buildings and grounds department director, Ethan Schoon, was also on hand to present their planned summer projects. WIN Academy will be seeing some parking lot repair and leveling, roof patching, carpeting in several rooms and new gym flooring. The Elementary building will also be getting new carpet in several rooms along with bathroom stall replacements, playground equipment repairs and gym flooring. The high school/middle school building will be seeing some updates to accommodate students with physical disabilities. There are also repairs and replacement planned for five doors. The softball complex needs irrigation repairs and the shotput/discus field is being relocated. The new gym floor gets installed the week of July 18. There will be deep cleaning of the facilities district-wide and HVAC maintenance will also be completed.

Spark 27 Creative, the design team in charge of branding and web design for the district, presented their proposal for website services and brand design to the board for consideration. In the past they have designed t-shirts, mugs, etc for the district as part of their design process and offered a proposal to continue with the same parameters as the prior year with no discount for extra hours of work and a proposal that includes the actual number of hours used by Spark 27 to make sure the website is updated, the information is analyzed and design work is completed.

The state of the Little Lakers Preschool and Early Childhood Family Education programs was presented by Sara Nestor, Coordinator for the programs. Currently the programs staff five part-time teachers, one part-time parent educator, five part-time classroom assistants and two Minnesota Reading Corps Members. There are 85 students enrolled in Little Lakers preschool. At this point there are 81 students enrolled for next year and class days and times are being evaluated for possible changes. 

The Early Childhood Family Education program had good attendance this year and hired a parent educator. There have been new classes added and they’re exploring a collaboration with the early intervention teacher to bring families to the program for education and support. So far in 2022, the school district has done 24 early childhood screenings.

Kinder Camp will be offered again for two weeks in August. The goal is to further support early learning and to prepare kids for kindergarten. “It’s a good way to reach students who didn’t have preschool,” said Nestor. There are 16 kids currently enrolled and the discussion for a second class is happening.

The elementary summer school program has changed a bit over the years after COVID, making a more robust program. The program begins in July and will be done in shorter bursts – four weeks for three hours a day. There will be transportation and daycare offered during the program as well. “We are working with teachers to have several small groups instead of one big group and they will rotate to each area of learning,” said Scott Lempka. “The kids get tokens they can spend at the school store for small prizes for doing good work at summer school. We want the program to be successful.”

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m. in the district office board room.