Prior Lake-Savage school board approves open enrollment plan

Prior Lake American

The Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board approved a plan 5-1 Monday night on open enrollment for the upcoming school year.

The plan will help address overcrowding issues for the next few years until a new elementary can be built in 2020. 

Open enrollment would be limited to 75 students in kindergarten and to 1 percent of enrolled students per grade for first through 12th. For example, if a grade had 600 students, enrollment would be limited to 6 kids. 

"One of the things that's different this year is with the board taking action tonight, you're approximately two months ahead of time," Assistant Superintendent Jeff Holmberg said during a presentation at the school board meeting. "We're earlier, so we certainly would be more proactive with our communication."

Board member Melissa Enger dissented and said the schools were too crowded at the kindergarten level without adding 75 students.

"The number one tool we have to limit overcrowding is the open enrollment option," Enger said. "We're now at 103 (percent) capacity and that includes re-purposing every nook and cranny we've got. That was the basis of the referendum."

The open enrollment wouldn't allocate kids to Redtail Ridge Elementary or WestWood Elementary due to the lack of space available at those schools.

Open enrollment is one part of solutions the board is looking at to address overcrowding at the elementary levels. Other ideas that are not finalized include using existing spaces as classrooms, constructing additional classrooms and changing district boundary lines so the schools are equally crowded.

In other action at the Dec. 11 meeting, the board:

• Authorized the sale of bonds by the district. Bids will be taken on Jan. 18. Executive Director of Business Services Julie Cink and one board officer are able to authorize the sale on the board's behalf at that time.

• Added new classes to the roster including Fashion II, Sport Psychology and Leadership, Nutrition and AP Psychology at Prior Lake High School. The high school will also offer Project America: Studying History and Literature Through Curiosity, Collaboration and Conversation, which is a joint class with a social studies teacher and an English teacher.

• Courses were also added for the middle schools.

• Approved advertising of bids for roofing projects in 2018. Bids will be due Feb. 1, with board approval on Feb. 12. Construction would begin in June and finish in late August.