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By Brenda Erdahl
May 6, 2008
Nearly every seat in the Annandale Middle School choir room was occupied
Monday, April 28, the night the school board heard a recommendation from
the Facilities Task Force
to demolish the 1922 building at the middle school. An outpouring of
opinion pieces published in the Annandale Advocate, mostly objecting to
the idea of tearing down the historical building, brought attention to
what otherwise would have been an average monthly meeting for board
members. To conserve time, the board allowed only two visitors to speak,
Laura Hood Beckman and Jill Bishop, organizers of a movement to keep the
'22 building a viable part of the Annandale School District. Others were
invited to express their opinions at a special meeting at 7 p.m.
Thursday, May 15, to discuss the
task force recommendations in greater detail, including the fate
of the 1922 building. Recommendations On April 28, Bishop and Beckman
said their piece briefly before members of the
task force unveiled their recommendations for facility
improvements to all three school buildings, plus the community education
center. "There have been numerous letters in the Advocate, also a front
page feature article, hundreds of people have signed petitions. There
have been meetings and emails and phone calls and posters," Bishop told
the board. "It all boils down to the same thing: Many people want you to
choose to reconsider that one part of the
task force plan that leads to the demolition of the 1922
building." Task force
members, a range of volunteers from the community including parents,
teachers, business owners and school board members, cited two main
reasons for their recommendation to phase out the 1922 building. No. 1,
the site is severely landlocked and can't be expanded. While there is no
need for expansion now since enrollment has been on the decline,
task force member Angie Manuel said that could change in the
future. The group also had some concerns that the state would create a
new standard that would require more room, or the need for outdoor space
would increase. "The building should be considered a part of our
facility past and present, but not
its long term future," the
task force team wrote in
its report. "In doing this, the school district should not invest
significant funds into a major remodeling of the current middle school
building. Such an investment would commit the school district to this
site for decades to come." The second reason is that it would cost
taxpayers $1.2 to $2 million more to renovate the old building than it
would to tear it down. If the district continued to use it as a school,
the building would need new windows, tuck pointing, a new roof, a new
heating and cooling and air exchange system, an elevator and a lift into
the lower gym. If it were renovated, the
task force would also recommend putting a commons area and
cafeteria in the old building, Supt. Steve Niklaus said. The final
recommendation was to demolish the building or offer it to individuals
or groups in the community for non-school public or private use. If
voters approve a bond issue, the money the district would have used to
tear down the old school - $100,000 to $150,000 - would be given to a
community group to fix up the old school as it sees fit. The
task force's recommendation to phase out the 1922 building would
require moving the fifth grade to Bendix Elementary School where
additions would be built to house them, members said. The
task force's job
wasn't just to study the middle school. The members also identified and
prioritized needs at the elementary school, the high school, the
community education center and the district's outdoor recreational and
athletic facilities. In total, they identified more than $25 million
dollars in facility needs they hope to go to the taxpayers for in the
next year or two. "We were real sensitive to the tax burden," Manuel
said. "We feel this plan is for a reasonable amount." Even if a bond
issue were passed, people living within the Annandale School District
would still pay the second- or third-lowest amount in school taxes in
Wright County, she said. In determining the recommendations, the
task force held nine meetings between October and March during
which they toured each of the buildings, studied enrollment trends, sent
out surveys to families in the district, heard from engineers and talked
with teachers and administrators who work in the buildings. From there
they made recommendations for each of the buildings. A priority is the
state of the roofs on all three schools. The roofs of all three
buildings are almost 20 years old and need to be replaced, the
task force said in its
report. That includes the entire roof at Bendix and the high school and
portions of the middle school including the roofs on the 1954, 1961 and
1991 additions at a cost of around $2,854,000. At Bendix,
task force members recommend a new bus parking lot separate from
vehicle parking plus pedestrian walking areas to address what many feel
is a dangerous environment for picking up and dropping off children. A
big concern at Bendix is the lack of walls and doors, which have been
cited as a problem almost since the building was built 38 years ago. In
a survey, one parent admitted he or she was considering taking their
pre-school-aged child to a different district when the time comes
because of the school's design. "My thoughts on the pod system at Bendix
is that it may work, but I feel that it may not be a very good setting
to learn in," the parent wrote. "I would be willing to vote yes to a
referendum to help out." The
task force's proposal is to remodel the building to provide those
things, as well as build additions to house the fifth-grade and
preschool programs now at the community education center. The
task force also recommends new gyms, locker rooms, a food service
and cafeteria area, an adequate media center and a secured entry and
administrative space. The group also recommends replacing the Bendix
boiler with a high efficiency system. The mechanical systems at AMS also
need reworking, they said. That should include replacing the boilers at
the middle school with a similar standard steam boiler, replacing all
steam traps, replacing the 1954 air handling units and reconditioning
others as needed. The mechanical improvements in both buildings would
cost around $2.5 million. The middle school also needs new windows in
the 1954 and 1961 additions and improvements to security at the school
entrance. Security would be upgraded by moving the middle school
administrative offices next to the front entry where the district office
is now located. The task force
talked about moving the district offices to the community ed center
building. Finally, the committee recommended the district join with the
city of Annandale in constructing new ball fields on the sewage pond
site that will be abandoned in the near future. That project should
include baseball, softball, tennis and multi-purpose fields for soccer,
football and lacrosse at a cost of around $5 million. According to
Niklaus, now is the time to approach voters for money for major
improvements to the schools because in 2009 the mortgage on the high
school will be paid off.
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