 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. For information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com. Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents, where this evening we're going to talk about the successful referendum that we're passed and brainered this past year and the projects that are about ready to begin. And my guests this evening are Lane Larson, the superintendent of schools and our community, her community head director and communications person, Corrie Reynolds and Corrie, you are the person who did the lead communications for getting the referendum passed through the district. So let's talk a little bit about that first, being that I'm a brainered native myself. I was amazed that that referendum passed in with three phases, which is pretty unusual in this day and age. I know over the last couple years there have been communities that have passed referendum. But to have three of the sides that were passed here is quite remarkable. And Lane, you and I have talked about this before. You have had other superintendents call you about the process that you used. Just briefly about the effort that you put into this, you and your staff and the school board. It was quite an endeavor, wasn't it? Yeah, it really is and you're absolutely right. There's a lot of people that have contacted us about the process that we've used. And basically, again, we used a six phase process starting with extensive communication, which like we know from the beginning of this project through the duration of our school district, extensive communication is important. And that's why we had Corrie lead that up. We also knew that we needed to hear from our stakeholders. And so we did well over 200 listening sessions where we gained information from the public and from our staff within our buildings. And then once the plan was developed, we, I believe it was like 110 more public meetings where we gave information prior to the referendum. And then the third phase was additional assessments and surveys that the board could look at, the demographics, different pieces that surveys that they could ask the public for information and so on. Once those decisions were made, then we went into developing the plan itself. And then once the plan was approved, then it was bringing it to the public for the referendum. So prior to the referendum itself on April 10th, we went through phases one through five. And that was an extensive process. Now that that's passed, now we're in phase six, which is the design, the construction, and bringing it all to fruition and making it a reality. And from the time you started promoting the ID, once the board gave the approval to go ahead and move with this, how long was that period from the time you did start it until the vote? December 11th was the date that the board approved it. There was about four years of work up to that point to get to that point. This process started well before Superintendent Larson even began. When I first started four years ago, the school board had just approved the work on the lower site at the high school and directed administration to come up with a long range plan for the facilities. They could see coming on the horizon that the buildings needed a lot of work, a lot of maintenance. We knew they didn't work in all cases really well for the kind of education we want to provide our students. So yeah, we did probably three years of work with experts in school buildings to really assess the conditions of the buildings. We worked with our community to sort of analyze all that data we got and see where our buildings were strong and where we needed to really work on. And so we sort of knew where the buildings were. We knew the conditions. We knew what they needed just to sort of maintain. And so when Superintendent Larson got here, she was able then to, your favorite analogy, pick the ball up on the 50-yard line and do the rest of the work of, okay, we know, we know what's wrong with the buildings. Now let's figure out what more we could do with them. And so she really layered in another almost full year of community input going to anyone and everyone who would listen and share feedback. And how many buildings do you actually own between the greater and this while where you are actually teaching students? Twelve at this point. Twelve. And then through this process now we'll be adding another elementary school in Baxter. And what happens to the current school in Baxter? That will become early childhood family education hub for the district. Okay, so that's not going to be, none of these are going to be torn down, are they? Yeah, except maybe one. One, Lincoln Education Center will be deconstructed and that will be about four years right at the end of this project. And that used to be the community college. Yeah, isn't that something, yeah. Yeah, well that's where I went to the first year of my school. So you have 12 buildings and I know from growing up here that a lot of those buildings are really old. Some of them were built in the 30s, I believe. Whittier, you had kind of closed Whittier a number of years ago. So what was, what's the first phase that you're going to be doing now that you've got to go ahead? Well once we, this was board approved in December and then we had our review and comment finalized in January and then we went forward to April. And many times during that period of time people would say, when is this going to start if it passes? And we said April 11th the next day. And that's exactly what's happened because we hit the ground running. And so we have been bringing forth another proposal of what the sixth phase looks like for the different phases of design and so on. So starting on the 11th of April we started the design phase for the Brainard High School, what that will look like. We also are looking at Harrison, Niswa Elementary School, and the designing of the new elementary school which will be in Baxter. And so right now those are the four buildings that we're working on extensively and also the drop-off pickup at Forest View Middle School. And so as we, now we're moving into the second phase of design there where our user groups are looking at each individual intricate space that our teachers and our employees are working in to make sure that it's going to function the way we need it to for high quality education and to provide the flexibility that we're going to need as we go through this 21st century. And so we're working on that and as we get into the bidding process and such on those four buildings then we're going to bring some more buildings into this. And so years two and three we're going to be working on 11 buildings at a time. Wow. And add different phases. Yeah. Who's managing all of this? Well, it's being led by the district and the Board of Education with consultants. And yeah, so ICS and Wood says Smith-Nolting are leading consultants that we're working with that are helping guide us through this process. So next year you're going to have all these activities going on all at one time. Do you have any idea how many people this is going to employ? I have, oh many, many. And I'm guessing some of those will be people coming from outside with special skills. You're going to be building a new theater. Do you call it a theater? Are you calling it? What are you calling it? What is a technical name for it? We like the term Performing Arts Center. Performing Arts Center. We have bidding that encompasses theater, music, band choir, just all the different uses that we expect to have. Because right now the only thing in the Brainerd community has been the old Tornstorm Auditorium where I used to go to high school. I think that seats maybe like 900 people. How large will the new facility be? 1200 seats. 1200 seats. Wow. And that will be on the north side of the current high school, correct? So that will start next year too? We're already in the design phase of that. We've been going on many tours around the state looking at the Performing Arts Center. We've been looking in a lot of different areas. Career and technical education and workforce development. We've been looking at health and wellness facilities, swimming pools. We've been looking at elementary schools that are models that have pieces that we think are going to be really important to providing the highest quality education possible for our kids. And so yeah, so we're working on the Performing Arts Center as part of the Brainerd High School. When do you anticipate that will be done? Construction. And how long down the road? I believe the consultants tell us that the Brainerd High School project is probably our most complex project because it's large and there's pools and gyms and classrooms and Performing Arts Center. So they expect that project to go on for the duration of the four years. So about 2021-22 is about when you would expect that to be done. There will be pieces of it that will be done ahead of time. It's like in all the facilities. As we start the building project, we're going to be adding the new space first as much as we can to get additional space for our education. And then we can move and provide classes in different areas so that we can work during the school year and such on some of the existing pieces of the facility. So like with the high school itself, it will be the entire four-year process that we have. But there are going to be pieces of it that might be done after two years. And then other things that will be done the third year and then finishing up some things that fourth year. But our intent is that we are going to address all of the needs of all three questions, all 12 buildings, and have them ready to go four years from the start of this school year. When I was a kid growing up here at Labor Day, the streets folded up. I mean it just seemed like it. There was always some tourism in September and October. But now it doesn't feel like there's any difference hardly between now and July. Do you sense that? Have you been looking at the projection projected data for growth in this particular area? What is it showing you? I don't mean to put you on the spot if you don't have the figures. No, no, we love talking about this. Are you? What are you looking at for potential growth in the Brainerd School District? So one of the exercises we undertook before Lane got here was to employ the services of a former state demographer to answer this very question. What's the future of our community look like? What can we expect for enrollment in our buildings? And what she showed was that it was reasonable to expect somewhere around seven percent growth over the next decade. Now we're about three or four years into her projection and we are we're hitting that projection. Really? Do you think you're ahead of it maybe even if you look at the 10 years? This year I think we are. We were kind of excited because we expected to see a big jump once the referendum was done and the buildings were completed but this fall we had a nice increase in our enrollment already and so we're hoping that trend continues because we're really excited about the incredible opportunities we can provide kids and people in our community. And it goes along with some of the what I like to think of as revitalization in the whole area. You know we're seeing the rail expansion in Brainerd and some of these other exciting renewal efforts that are really getting legs and moving forward and we feel like this is really our contribution, our part of that. You know if people are coming here to work and some of the new and expanding industries many times they're going to have kids that they're bringing with and we want to have these state-of-the-art facilities to show them so it really works hand in hand. We are working hand in hand with the community revitalization. So are you thinking that at least for the next 10 years you're going to have the facilities to accompany the growth? Absolutely. That's the way it's looking right now. Yes we will. The other thing I think that's really unique about what's happening in our district right now or within our communities and region I should say is that there really is a commitment to partnerships. And throughout this process we've worked closely with CLC and with Dr. Charlier who came to Brainerd on the very same day that I did with our Chamber of Commerce both here in Brainerd and in Niswa and talking about the partnerships that we can build with our business community, our college, our high school and how we're really committed to making and growing our entire region together throughout the whole region. And it's exciting because there are like you talked about the River to Rails and some of those entities it's like there's an energy right now where people really want to make all of this happen and it's happening because everyone's committed to working together and doing it together. This is purely on scientific but I just know that and I know we have a lot of road construction going on through the summer into the fall. It's making things a lot more challenging to get around but it just seems like there's so much more traffic this past year and a half than there has been and you know I don't know about how the new housing is, if we're getting a lot of new houses in the area but there is definitely feels like growth in this particular region and I know you've had some challenges with some neighborhoods where maybe they're going to lose some space that they didn't, are those getting worked out okay in general? Yeah we're working, we're working on that as we speak because that is probably one of the more difficult pieces of this. One of the promises that we made the community when we brought forth our questions one and two is the fact that the public overwhelmingly during listening sessions said they wanted to keep their neighborhood schools and one of the challenges that we have is our space issues. Our space issues for within our buildings themselves for our classrooms and our education for our playground equipped areas those kinds of things and for parking and so one of the things that we talked about throughout this process during the listening sessions and the presentations of information were that we knew that we would need to acquire some property and for the most part people have that have been contacted regarding the property acquisition have been very positive about it and really wanting to work with the district and with the consultants to do this work. There are some though that this is very difficult and we're very mindful of that and are working through that process. Monday night the Board of Education will be making some recommendations as far as moving forward and so it's going to be interesting to to see if they take it in parts or or what they decide to do on Monday night but but yeah that that's a difficult part but yes we're going to work through that. I think that's always a challenge when you're expanding in the inner city area yeah whether it's whole homes and some people maybe have lived in those homes for sometimes two generations so it's a it's a big change for them. When you when you look at the Niswa area what is happening there then could you kind of give us a little more specifics? What's happening there? Well lots of growth there so the growth at Niswa Elementary School has outpaced our projections so already yes already so we're planning to add another whole section onto that school right now it's set for two classrooms of every grade and we're going to three classrooms at least of every grade and we're doing this expansion and really all of our building expansion so that if we have more growth in the future we can add on to the buildings very easily quickly so yeah. So they're not going to be left behind by any social imagination? No they have been an integral part of this the entire time. In fact because of the increased growth that we've seen so rapidly there we've already added some additional rooms into the plan right now because we know that we don't want to open the school with all the changes and have it be too small and so we're already addressing that. What are the grades in Niswa? What are the K-4? K-4 and how big is your staff there? Roughly. I think their staff is about 50 somewhere in the neighborhood. Wow it's exciting yeah very exciting and we talked about that for the average homeowner you're looking about seven dollars a month increases about what the taxes came out which is really remarkably cheap because I live in Staples where we're looking at building or at least getting a referendum passed this next not this fall but in May I think is when this probably going to be going before the community and the rates are going to be much higher than that. How many school districts are in this position that you are where they're having to try to get referendum passed? Do you have any feel for that when you meet with superintendents statewide? I don't know what the number is but it's really high and but you're absolutely right we between our existing funds that we have right now that we're going to be realigning our uses for some of our long-term facility maintenance some of our capital money and so on our local levy and also the voter approved bond referendum that is seven dollars per month increase to the median household which is 156 thousand dollar home in our region that's because we have over a five billion dollar tax base here and so to get to be able to have a hundred or 205 million dollars in project for seven dollars per month is is really amazing compared to other referendums throughout the state and so we feel really blessed and fortunate. So how many of these buildings are going to be repurposed? All of them. All of them? Yes there will be something done in every single building which is how many? It's 12 buildings. All 12 buildings will be repurposed? Yes and then one brand new building the new building in Baxter and then Lincoln will be deconstructed during year four. Will that become a parking lot for the high school and for the regional performing arts center? So I'd like to talk just a little bit about the performing arts center one more thing is that one of the exciting pieces of question three was that we took the auditorium that was in question two in the high school and we expanded it to make it a much larger more robust performing arts center 1200 seats an orchestra pit better acoustics better lighting larger stage and one of our hopes and dreams here is to have it become a regional performing arts center where we can have provide higher quality educational opportunities for our kids but also for our whole region where we're bringing people in to have some professional theater or a semi-professional theater and all kinds of opportunities with dance concerts you name it that can be providing there so we're very excited about what that's going to do for the whole Brainard Lakes area to have that to have that huge performing arts center available when you look at the area and you look at the summer population I know having when I worked at the college that was a huge obstacle we didn't have a place to do that sort of thing so that will be pretty cool to be able to do that that's how is the do you have enough parking if you get 1200 people coming in and is that is that is that parking going to be north of the performance towards the library then or where will that parking be or I suppose Lincoln the old Lincoln site will be part of it correct all of the above okay there will remain some parking on the north side but we are losing about 126 spots with the increase of the regional performing arts center but we are looking at parts or all of the two city blocks just east of the high school which Lincoln education center is on the north side of the block and then we're looking at some property on the block right south of that off of Quinn street as well and so we're hoping that that's going to be enough but that's really one of the tasks that we're working on as we speak so yeah how about safety school safety I mean this is going to give you an opportunity to do things that you couldn't do in some of these older buildings what are some of the things you're looking at doing great the number one objective we had eight objectives for our project when we came forward with this and the number one objective was to increase the safety and security of every one of our buildings so that our children our staff and any guests that we have in our buildings that they are safe and so we're very thrilled about the fact that this happened we'll have safe and secure entrances we're going to be able to close down many of the doors around the buildings throughout the school day where and have people check in at the main entrance we're going to be able to do some pieces with communication systems with cameras with parking bus drop-off pickup parent drop-off pickup we're going to be able to look at the safety and security of every aspect of this project as a result of it because like I said from the day I got here the number one objective that the board of education was committed to was a safety and security of our facilities I know in older facilities it's very difficult to try to do the things that the modern schools are doing to make their environment safe so that puts you in a really good spot how about technology what what what's do you have a group working just on technology issues in the buildings too yeah well we already are so proud of our really robust technology opportunities we offer students I mean I feel like they're right on the cutting edge despite our facilities and what I'm excited about is getting to a place where our facilities support that work instead of us having to overcome them and so that is that was one of the eight objectives that we would have visionary technology integration and into all of our buildings and it's being embedded right into the instruction students are receiving from teachers so it has been a very high priority and we're really looking forward to how we can incorporate that more in new buildings one of the things that we're seeing nationally is a real shortage of teachers are you are you experiencing that yet here or no yes you are yes we are and you know that when I first went into education the Brainerd Lakes area or Alexandria Lakes area would be considered the prime places to go get a job so it's surprising to hear that even places like Brainerd are starting to struggle what special ed or math or where are your where are your challenges at right now well you know um this is my 13th year as a superintendent of schools and so I've it's my third district that I've been a superintendent of schools in and I've been in greater Minnesota my entire career and um when greater Minnesota has felt this teacher shortage significantly for a number of years in fact when we've met with the commissioner of education when we have met down with the legislature when we as superintendents have gone to lobby we've talked about the shortage of teachers in special education in the areas of STEM the science technology engineering and math even in our elementaries we're starting to see shortages of teachers I believe that that even in the metropolitan areas they are definitely feeling this shortage of high quality instructors that are available and they're doing a lot with licensure and such in order to help meet the needs of that and we've been fortunate because we do live in this just incredible area of the state where people want to be here but we too feel it and um it and it is something that's very real and that we're going to continue to talk with our legislators about and and to continue to grow our own in some respects to develop that workforce that that we talk about for our region that includes educators and we want to work with our college and work with people throughout the state to make sure that we're addressing that need because one of the things Minnesota is so incredibly proud of is that we provide high quality education some of the best and brightest um graduates in the whole nation and we want to continue to live up to that and we're going to do that we have about a minute left um if another school district is interested in the process that you used how how would they who should they talk to how should they get information they should just give us a call and we would be happy to do that just off your brand stable or brand high school website the blueprint 181 um they can call either one of us personally and we can set that up I know that we've had some service co-ops already now from around the region that or from around the state that have asked that we've come to their regional meetings so that we can hit maybe 40 um superintendents in different school districts at a time um we're also doing some presentations like with the minnesota rural education association um we've applied to present at the minnesota school board association because we feel that we have that responsibility as well because when we when we're here to educate children we're here to educate all children all children throughout the state and nation through our kids and so we want to provide any opportunities that we can for any school districts um in our state well thank you very much for jumping on with us and good luck with all your new projects it's pretty exciting it is thank you for having us you bet you've been watching lakeland currents where we're talking about what you're talking about i'm ray gildow so long until next time