Schools scramble to build as population booms
Sioux Falls-area growth creates crunch for student space
By Jonnie Taté Finn
jtatefinn@argusleader.com
Published: August 15, 2007
In the days leading up to the start of school, construction workers are as common a sight as teachers at Sioux Falls area schools.
At almost every school in Minnehaha and Lincoln county, districts are completing building projects or planning for those projects in the near future.
"All this growth mainly affects us in building space. That's our biggest hurdle right now, having space to educate," said Tea Area Superintendent and Activities Director Dean Jones.
This year, growth also is affecting the football team in Tea.
Senior Austin Irvine has seen many changes since he started playing varsity football in eighth grade.
"Back then, I got my butt kicked every play," he said, just days before practice started for the upcoming season. "Now, I'm giving it to them."
But he'll see another, bigger change this season when the Titans move from playing nine-man football teams to schools in the 11B division. In the past four years, the team has gone from playing 9B division teams to 9AA and now to 11B football.
Tea Area has doubled its enrollment from 550 students four years ago to more than 1,100 this year.
"We weren't expecting it to happen this fast," Jones said. "We expected this big or a shade bigger, but not in four years."
The rapid growth Sioux Falls-area schools are seeing bucks a statewide trend. Numbers from the South Dakota Department of Education show only 28 of the state's districts had an enrollment in 2006 that was larger than the enrollment five years earlier.
Around here, districts are working to keep up. Tea Area School Board members voted in May to move forward with an almost $2 million improvement plan to add seven classrooms and a music room to the high school. The plan also calls for enhancements to the intermediate and elementary schools.
Harrisburg passed a bond issue to build new buildings. Brandon Valley would like to make $20 million in improvements if taxpayers agree. Dell Rapids is discussing a new elementary school and more space in the middle and high schools.
Like Tea, Brandon has seen rapid growth in the community affect education.
Brandon's population has more than doubled since 1990, from 3,543 residents to an estimated 8,000 today.
To accommodate the growth, the school board appointed a Facilities Needs Planning Committee, which proposed $20 million in new buildings, including a two-story, 26-classroom addition to the high school, an indoor activity center, a new elementary school and the creation of an intermediate campus, featuring separate buildings for grades five and six and seven and eight.
Some districts already have prepared themselves for the population booms to come.
When the new West Central School District school year starts, many students will be learning in brand-new classrooms and buildings.
"We're currently replacing 67 percent of the instructional square footage of our school district," Superintendent Paul Gausman said. The entire project will cost about $12.56 million and includes additions and renovations to West Central Middle School, two new elementary schools, a new administration office and a shared community and district library.
"The building projects we're currently engaged in have been built for growth so we're prepared for the time when we need to expand," Gausman said. "The first thing you see entering Hartford on Highway 38 is West Central High School, which was built in 1996 and will be the oldest school building in the district. That's exciting for us - that our kids will be educated in new and appropriate facilities.
Gausman said he pays close attention to the swelling population in Sioux Falls, not just the growth in his 165-square-mile district.
Western Sioux Falls is creeping into West Central's eastern border, he said, just as Sioux Falls is growing into Harrisburg.
"We have to pay close attention to that," Gausman said. "We need to be able to respond to Sioux Falls' growth, not just the growth of Humboldt, Hartford or Wall Lake."
The growth also affects high school activities such as sports.
Sixteen high schools across the state will move up a division because of the growth their districts have experienced.
"Demographics are changing all the time," said Bob Lowery, assistant executive director for the South Dakota High School Activities Association. "We try to keep the changes to a minimum, otherwise it snowballs. One change causes three or four others."
Tea Area football coach Adam Larson is used to change, and moving from 9AA to 11B football is part of that.
"We're just going to have to stress more time in the weight room," he said. "When you move up in the class system, I mean, the bigger you get, the better the athletes. Bigger schools have bigger pools as far as picking kids for the team goes."
Reach reporter Jonnie Taté Finn at 331-2320.
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