special supplement to The Globe DISTRICTSCHOOL518Intermediate
2 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL IntermediateathroughofficialsSchoolwalkhallwayintheSchoolwhenitwasstillunderconstructiononOct.16,2021. Tim Middagh / The Globe Find District 518 School Supply Lists dglobe.com/schoolat:
“Most rooms have windows or the opportunity to look outside,” said Superintendent John Landgaard, noting that openness had been a priority in the building’s design.
BY KARI LUCIN The Globe
The newly-completed Intermediate School and its parking lot stand empty prior to the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.
Anne Foley/District 518
For example, there’s the carpetfree flex lab, allowing students to learn messier lessons and perform experiments without worrying about staining the rug — and with a sink nearby for quick clean-up.
The gym has its own generator and restrooms, allowing it to double as a storm shelter.
The focus, though, will remain on building a positive, welcoming culture for students and adults alike, Clarke said. “You always want it to affect the academics and help the kids,” Landgaard said. She invited all community members to attend the open house from 3:30 to 6 p.m. Sept. 6 at the Intermediate School, at 671 North Crailsheim Road. “We’re excited about the new year coming up,” Landgaard added.
WORTHINGTON — Visitors to the new Intermediate School will find a brightly-lit, airy facility in neutral hues highlighted with District 518’s red-black-and-white school colors, but some of the building’s features are a bit less obvious than its repeated chevron motif.“The building is fantastic, and hats off to the school board and the community for seeing the need,” said Katie Clarke, its principal. “The building itself is wonderful, but it’s the people that make it come alive… I absolutely know we’re going to rock this with our kids, with our staff, with our families.”Withcapacity for 900 students, the facility will alleviate a space crunch at the district’s Prairie Elementary and Worthington Middle School, when it opens its doors to students in grades three through five for the first time on Tuesday, Aug. 30. Clarke enjoys challenging people who are walking through the 126,000 square foot building for the first time to find their “wow factor,” but for her it’s definitely the gymnasium. It’s large enough to accommodate two full-sized basketball courts, with a light wood floor and the chevron motif decorating the walls — a theme designers adapted from the look of prairie grasses.
WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 | 3
Like Prairie Elementary, the Intermediate School has three pod-like areas, each featuring a large open commons space with general classrooms distributed all around its edges, and rooms for specialists close by. Each pod contains one grade level. The general education classrooms all have their own sinks, storage spaces and whiteboards.
The new space will allow educators to shift the location of some instruction, using new learning methods and tactics, Clarke said.
Air and light
Intermediate School features bright, open spaces
AIR AND LIGHT: Page 4
“The Intermediate School has modern architectural features, up-to-date amenities and beautiful colors all throughout the building,” Jenson said. “Each grade level is separated, making it easy to Thenavigate.”music classrooms, wide and spacious, are equipped with sound-absorbing acoustic panels and flat floors, allowing for the flexible seating and instrument positioning that will accommodate a wide variety of ensembles. And there’s one feature the music room has that other parts of the Intermediate School do not — a tuba sink.“All brass instruments need to be flushed for the long-term function of the instrument,” Jenson explained, and cleaning the larger instruments such as tubas and euphoniums requires a lot more space than a standard bathroom or even kitchen sink contains.
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Landscaping has been completed for the Intermediate School.
- Mary Blanchard
“The special education department has a suite of rooms near each other. This will help with sharing resources such as our much-valued paraprofessionals,” she said. “There is a sensory room in the area as well.”Blanchard teaches students with learning disabilities, and like others who do so, her classroom is located near the grade level she teaches, helping teachers coordinate better with each other.
At the Intermediate School, she’ll have enough room at last, though she did say she’d miss the staff and students back at Prairie.
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Because of the crowding at Prairie, Blanchard explained, specialists were using rooms not designed as classrooms. She shared a classroom with another teacher, each teaching separate groups simultaneously, with no noise barriers. The staff even gave up their break room so Blanchard would have more space.
Fifth grade band teacher Jeanette Jenson moved into the Intermediate School in mid-July, and many of her music students have already gotten a sneak peek into their new digs — provided they attended summer band or orchestra camps in early August.
AIR AND LIGHT From Page 3 AIR AND LIGHT: Page 5
“This is an exciting time to be in education,” Blanchard said. “If you have ever thought about getting your teaching license or helping as a paraprofessional, we have a beautiful new space for you to invest in our students’ lives. Come join us!”
MUSIC
Sending the instruments to be cleaned professionally is expensive, so the tuba sink is a cost-saving measure, too, Jenson added.
“A new building like this supports educators in our mission to provide all local children with the best possible educational experience and sends a message to surrounding communities and the state that we value both teachers and students here,” Jenson said.Previously, Jenson worked at Worthington Middle School and Prairie Elementary, and she even spent time working at West Elementary before it became West Learning Center. She said she’d miss her colleagues at the middle school and the energy students in that age group bring into the classroom.
Mary Blanchard, a special education teacher at the Intermediate School, thanked district staff for all their help getting boxes moved from one building to another and then into the classrooms.
She praised the voters of District 518 for making an investment in the future of the community by moving forward with the Intermediate School.
“This is an exciting time to be in education. If you have ever thought about getting your teaching license or helping as a paraprofessional, we have a beautiful new space for you to invest in our students’ lives. Come join us!”
“The layout of the building is well thought out,” she said. “Each grade level has rooms they need for the general education teachers and specialists in the same area.”
Anne Foley/District 518
While the gymnasium is impressive, some visitors to the Intermediate School cite the media center as their “wow.”
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“The Intermediate School Library Media Center is the focal point of the new building with modern lighting and unique paint patterns,” said Sara Oldre, media specialist. “Expansive windows provide an ample amount of natural light. The windows were designed to provide a bright open and welcoming feel to the library media center.”
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“The reason we can provide a traditional library is because the district provides a one on one device for all students allowing us to focus on print materials,” Oldre explained.
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MEDIA CENTER
AIR AND LIGHT From Page 4
As part of the move, she had to select which books would be transferred to the new school. She started out by choosing 5,500 existing books already at the schools, and then researched and consulted with book companies to determine what else would be needed.
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Then District 518 purchased another 4,000 books to fill out the library, and some books were duplicated due to their popularity and the reading levels of students.“Mystaff and I are excited for this opportunity to provide services to students and staff at the new Intermediate School,” said Oldre, who is also the media specialist at Prairie.
new
The spacious two-story media center features a spectacular view of the prairie behind the school and repeats the chevron motif found throughout the school, this time in blue and green.
While the facility is modern, the media center itself will be more of a traditional library, with an emphasis on age-appropriate literature meeting the needs of students in third through fifth grade.
The building’s doors will be secured during the school day, funneling people directly into the office, but upon leaving the office visitors enter a spacious hallway with a terrazzo floor — with a clear view ahead to the media center.
Anne Foley/District 518 Playground equipment has been installed for the Intermediate School.
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6 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 | 7
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Tim Middagh / The Globe delegation from Crailsheim, Germany, received a tour of the new Intermediate School from Principal Katie Clarke, including the building’s spacious, light-filled media center, on Friday, June 10, 2022.
“The building is fantastic, and hats off to the school board and the community for seeing the need. The building itself is wonderful, but it’s the people that make it come alive… I absolutely know we’re going to rock this with our kids, with our staff, with our families.”
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- Principal Katie Clarke
8 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL Karen Gonyea Account KarenG@nbt.com612-554-0848MinnesotaExecutive| www.NBF.com
At the time, it was an unusual problem to have, as many rural districts were declining in population and in students, but it was still a problem, as adding 100 students a year would also mean adding about three classrooms per year.“We knew we were going to run out of space,” DudleyPrairiesaid.Elementary had just opened in 2001. The idea of an Intermediate School didn’t come up immediately, however. Olson recalls having a space study done to find out how effectively the school was using its classroom space. It found that not only were they using all of the classrooms, they were also turning rooms that hadn’t been built as classrooms into classrooms.Anumber of options were discussed, including adding onto Prairie Elementary, as the school had deliberately left enough space for later additions if needed. Adding more space to Worthington High School was also discussed. In the end, the school sought voter approval for a bond issue of $38.975 million for construction of a new intermediate school as well as improvements to Prairie Elementary and WHS. The proposal was crushed at the polls,District1,758-965.518leadership regrouped and tried again a few years later, this time with a referendum for a new high school, but that failed as well, and so did other requests to voters to solve the space issue.
“That’s when we started the increased enrollment — (about) 100 students more every year for 10 years,” she recalled. “Then we did the enrollment study. There was a projection of increased enrollment.”
Tim Middagh/The Globe
Years in the making
WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 | 9
Principal Katie Clarke speaks to a group from Crailsheim, Germany, during a tour of the Intermediate School Friday, June 10, 2022, that included its new main office.
BY KARI LUCIN The Globe
MAKING: Page 10
Intermediate School project took planning, voter support
WORTHINGTON — The path to opening a new Intermediate School has been a long and, at times, contentious one for District 518. After multiple failed referendums and schools filled to capacity, that path is finally drawing to an end.Classes begin at the Intermediate School for the first time at 7:45 a.m. Aug. 30. “It was a long process. It was an exhausting process,” said Linden Olsen, who served on the District 518 Board of Education then. “We tried to place the needs of the students and what the community needed together to make something that would help the community as well as the schools.” That journey began around 2006, according to Lori Dudley, who was then a member of the school board and has since become its chairperson.
“People, I think, realized we were short of space but they thought the price was too high,” said Olson, noting that building costs have increased since that initial failed voter request. “I think people didn’t realize that education was also changing and the need for more space… was not the same as it was 20 or 30 years ago when a lot of the voters went to school.”
Finally, in 2019, District 518 voters approved a $33.7 million referendum for the construction of a new intermediate school with a capacity of 900 students in grades three through five. The district would spend $5 million from its general fund to pay for the rest of the $38.7 million project.
Tim Middagh / The Globe Cafeteria tables wait to be unwrapped and buffet counters are still being assembled in the new Intermediate School, as seen Friday, June 10, 2022.
Dudley isn’t sure what the school would have done had voters continued to turn down the ballot questions. They may have had to resort to modular temporary classrooms, and at one point, the idea of year-round school was proposed — and then rejected, because it still wouldn’t solve the space crunch.
Olson recalled looking at purchasing existing buildings and then remodeling them, but that turned out to be too expensive, and the West Learning Center was also found to be too expensive to remodel. They investigated partnerships with the city and potential state funding, but that didn’t work out either.
10 | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022 WORTHINGTON INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL MAKING From Page 9 MAKING: Page 11
“I’m excited we can now work to start fixing
problem(overcrowding)theinstead of just talking about it.”
“I’m excited we can now work to start fixing the (overcrowding) problem instead of just talking about it,” said Brad Shaffer, chairman of the school board in 2019.
The Intermediate School has finally given students — and District 518 — some breathing room.
Tim Middagh / The Globe Visitors tour the gymnasium at the Intermediate School June 10, 2022.
- Brad Shaffer
The Intermediate School has finally given students — and District 518 — some breathing room.
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From Page
Lori
“It’s beautiful. It’s spacious, it’s open, it’s full of light,” said Dudley, who has toured the new school. “It’s a great environment to learn in.” Dudley again thanked the voters of District 518, including those outside Worthington and in the surrounding small cities, for approving the building project. She also thanked her fellow school board members and school staff who devoted significant time and energy to the project, and in particular, Superintendent John Landgaard, whose resolve and vision were critical throughout the referendum process.
“Kids weren’t meant to learn in closets and break rooms,” Dudley said. “But we’re lucky, we can try to keep classes Previously,small.”theschool had enough staff to have smaller class sizes, but it didn’t have the space to do so. Now it “Nowdoes.itlooks like the building needs for the students, for the foreseeable future, are in pretty good shape,” Olson said. Though he has not yet seen the building’s interior, Olson plans to attend the ribbon cutting and open house event scheduled for 3:30 to 6 p.m. Sept. 6 at the school, located at 671 North Crailsheim Road.
MAKING 10
- Dudley Anne Foley/District 518
“I’ve been very blessed to work with a very visionary board and supportive staff and superintendent,” Dudley said. “It’s beautiful. It’s spacious, it’s open, it’s full of light. It’s a great environment to learn in.”
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