School district seeks members for new Facilities Task Force
The Elk River Area School Board is looking for people to serve on a new Facilities Task Force to develop recommendations for the School Board to review.
The task force will consist of up to 40 members from Elk River Area School District communities and will work in collaboration with the School Board and staff to chart the course for classroom spaces, building needs, and more over the next several years.
Over the past 10 years, the Elk River Area School District has consistently engaged in this process. The district partners with community members to review how its facilities are used, taking into account student programming needs, state and national standards, building capacity, population trends, and community growth.
The School Board has identified the need to address these top issues:
• Growth in the southern end of the district is nearing building capacity and a long-term plan to address student population growth is needed.
• Community engagement is highly valued and the district will partner with community stakeholders.
• The committee project timeline will run September through December of 2025, with recommendations delivered to the School Board in mid-December.
The School Board has defined the scope of the work for the task force to include:
• Develop no more than three recommendations for solutions to the long-term district-wide building capacity and student growth concerns.
• Recommendations should include school building capacity planning as boundary solutions may be a temporary solution.
• Recommendations must be financially viable and responsible.
An application survey for those who are interested will open on May 19, and can be found at ISD728.org/Facilities2025.
The proposed task force meetings will be held from 6-8 p.m. on the following dates: Sept. 11, 18 and 25; Oct. 2, Oct. 8 (conferences Oct. 9), and Oct. 23; Nov. 6 and 20; and Dec. 4 and 11.
