by Mike Knaak
editor@thenewsleaders.com
As students settle into their new high school, the Sartell-St. Stephen school district is experiencing some growing pains.
At the new high school at 3101 Pinecone Road N., there’s been a traffic jam in the student drop lane that features a roundabout.
Superintendent Jeff Schwiebert suggests parents dropping off students wait outside the roundabout in the approach lanes instead of stopping in the roundabout that leads to the drop-off area.
District officials have been adjusting bus times and routes to accommodate the new high school location, which is about three miles north of the old high school.
The new high school grounds added 65 acres to the district’s land which means more grass to mow with the same amount of staff. As a result, Schwiebert said, the grass at the middle school soccer field grew so long that “it needed to be baled.” A wet fall contributed to the quickly growing grass. An operational levy defeated last fall would have added staff to take care of the additional grounds.
The combined kindergarten enrollment at the district’s two elementary schools has grown to 400 students. Even if the district had money to hire another teacher, there’s no classroom space available.
Next year, when the old high school re-opens as a middle school and kindergarten through fifth-grade students are assigned to the reconfigured buildings, space will open up.
