Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

North Dakota District Prepares for New High School

  • By Matt Jones
  • 01/18/22

The planning process for a second high school for Minot Public Schools in Minot, N.D., is underway after voters passed a $109-million bond in December 2021.

The district is currently preparing schematics to determine the facility’s layout and contents; once those schematics are complete, the plans will enter the design and development phase and get details like furniture and fixtures. The district’s most immediate goal is to have construction drawings and to be preparing for project bidding by spring.

In addition to the new construction, the district also plans to convert its existing Minot High School Magic City Campus (which currently serves students grades 11-12) into a full, four-year high school, and the existing Minot High School Central Campus (which currently serves students grades 9-10) into a middle school.

“We’re feeling very good about the schedule. We should be easily able to make all of this transition by August of 2024,” said Minot School Superintendent Mark Vollmer. “Our goal is to, by May 1, to have the high school named and a mascot and colors, and actually beginning freshmen team sports next year that will be representing that new high school.”

Remodeling work at the Magic City Campus is set to include building a second gymnasium, adding locker space and renovating the school’s science and career and technical education areas. Local news reports that the district has applied for a $10-million career and technical education grant from the state of North Dakota to aid in the proposed construction.

Another task is to engage in boundary discussions to decide which elementary and middle schools will feed into which of the district’s two full-service high schools. “We believe once that high school is in place that we will see tremendous growth in that part of town,” Vollmer said. “Those decisions are going to be very emotional discussions, but exciting discussions for people. I think we just need to realize that at the end of the day, we’re not going to be overcrowded. We’re not going to be stuffing kids in portable classrooms anymore, and we’ll be making our educational opportunities more equitable for kids.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Chartwells Launches Campus Dining Evaluation Framework

    Contract food-service management provider Chartwells Higher Education recently announced the launch of BLUEPRINT, according to a news release. The evaluation framework was designed to provide a data-driven and customizable roadmap towards optimizing campus dining services and, by extension, the student experience.

  • school building with glowing circuit board patterns

    AI Is Coming to Schools — But Most School Buildings Still Run on Institutional Memory

    As school districts race to introduce AI into classrooms, administration, and curriculum planning, another conversation is happening behind the scenes: How prepared are school facilities themselves for the operational demands AI will create?

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Minnesota District Converts Middle School into Community Hub

    White Bear Lake Area Schools in White Bear Lake, Minn., recently announced the end of a major renovation project that converted a former middle school into a new centralized district and community hub, according to a news release.