Lonsdale will get two chances for a school

Tom Ford Star Tribune Staff Writer

September 15, 2004 SLONSDALE0915 in the Star Tribune

Both the New Prague and Montgomery-Lonsdale school districts will ask voters in coming months to fund construction of elementary schools in fast-growing Lonsdale.

New Prague voters will decide in December whether to build in Lonsdale, while the Montgomery-Lonsdale proposal could go before voters March 14.

Lonsdale is split between the two districts, and children living there must travel about 15 miles to get to the nearest school in New Prague or Montgomery.

The booming New Prague district would build in Lonsdale only if voters agree to the first part of a two-part ballot question, which calls for two new elementary schools in New Prague and New Market, and the renovation of New Prague Intermediate School. That school serves third- to fifth-graders.

The second part asks for a Lonsdale school and the expansion of New Prague High.

The outcome of the referendums could resolve a bitter dispute over Lonsdale between the districts.

Much of the newer and faster-growing parts of Lonsdale are in the New Prague district's borders.

New Prague asked its voters in May to fund three elementary schools, including one in Lonsdale, at a cost of $46 million. New Prague school officials have not finalized the costs for the December proposal.

Montgomery-Lonsdale leaders blasted the previous plan.

The district said that New Prague's Lonsdale building could fill only by luring away Montgomery-Lonsdale students -- and the state money that goes with them.

That issue was a major factor in the proposal's defeat, according to a phone survey New Prague conducted after the referendum.

Despite the setback, school leaders began preparing for another referendum almost immediately.

"There is no doubt among anybody that we need schools," said Superintendent Frankie Poplau.

Dealing with growth

The district has grown by nearly 10 percent each of the past couple of years and now has 3,200 students. Enrollment is expected to increase by at least 5 percent annually for about the next 10 years.

The growth has pushed beyond capacity all four New Prague schools, including the high school that was built just six years ago.

A 30-member community task force that recommended the December proposal largely agreed that the district would need the three new elementary schools, plus an expanded high school and upgraded New Prague Intermediate.

Several members favored placing two questions on the ballot because of indications that voters in the last referendum thought the district was asking for too much.

"If we lose, the stakes are too high," said Greg Tikalsky, a New Prague High social studies teacher.

Task force member and Lonsdale Mayor Tim Rud fears that a two-part question could leave his city with no school. It will be tough for voters, if they approve the New Prague and New Market schools, to agree to bear a higher tax burden for one more, he said.

"I'm not very optimistic," he said.

New Prague officials hope to have any new buildings finished by fall 2006.

Overcrowding currently is not a problem in the 1,050-student Montgomery-Lonsdale district. There is space in its two buildings to absorb about 400 more students.

District leaders acknowledge that could make it difficult to persuade voters to pay a few million dollars to build a new Lonsdale school -- for 250 children up to fourth grade -- on a 20-acre site the district bought last fall.

Yet there are already about 200 Lonsdale children in the district's borders who could attend its new school, and the number will increase, said Superintendent Ray Farwell.

The fact that Lonsdale children must travel so far to attend school, along with the threat New Prague's previous plan posed, should help the district's chances, Farwell said.

"Let's face it," he said. "New Prague rallied the community here when they sought to invade."

He said his district will "wait-and-see" if New Prague's Lonsdale school is approved.

New Prague plans to end open enrollment as of this month, eliminating the chance that a New Prague-built school would draw students from the Montgomery-Lonsdale side of the line.

Tom Ford is at tford@startribune.com.



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