SR-R Asking for More Feedback on District’s Facilities

SAUK RAPIDS -- After a number of community input sessions, a majority of Sauk Rapids-Rice school district residents seem to be in favor of building a new Pleasantview Elementary on the site of the current school.

Superintendent Aaron Sinclair says the feedback they've been getting is that Pleasantview is the number one issue in the district.

And what came back to us was that people really wanted us to look at the option to rebuild a brand new Pleasantview on the current site.  So we've really focused in on that, trying to figure out what exactly that would look like and is it even possible to do that on that site know that we'd have to keep the current school running during construction.

Sinclair says their consultants say it is possible to accomplish it.

Pleasantview was built in the 1970s, but it has a series of round pods with open classrooms so the challenge is it can be loud and there is a lack of security.

Sinclair says there's no timeline yet for a potential referendum to build a new Pleasantview.

Sinclair says they've been looking at every building in the district to help create a long-term facilities plan over the next 10 years.

He says they are coming up on their first year of completely closed enrollment and they are planning to be down by about 50 kids for this upcoming school year.

The Sauk Rapids-Rice school district invites all community members to attend an open house Tuesday from 3:00 until 7:00 p.m. at Rice elementary, or on Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. or from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Sauk Rapids Government Center to give feedback on the school facilities options. Booths will be set-up where you can learn about the different options and give feedback.