By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
The Northfield Public Schools has been busy collecting ideas and designing the renovations to the high school building. The Core Planning team was formed in December as the main group to provide input on the design. The groups comprise nearly 40 members, including faculty, staff, parents, and community members. In December, the group hosted a public forum to collect input. The Core Planning Team has also been out touring different schools to collect design ideas and provide feedback. Schools visited included Owatonna, Waseca, St. Peter, Tartan High School, Rock Ridge High School, and Mora High School. The athletic subcommittee also went on additional tours to New Prague, Mounds View, and Chisago Lakes.
Here’s Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann at the January 27th School Board meeting describing the importance of the tours:
“You see things and design elements that you like and you also see things you don’t like. So to bring the tours to a close, Sal Bagley surveyed all of the tour participants, of more than 30. Some people that went on day 1 and around 20 or so that went on day 2. And then, the core planning team will be going through all of that feedback and starting to help devise the criteria that’s going to yield the first set of floor plans.” – Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann at the 1/27/2025 School Board Meeting
The current timeline is for the Core Group to finish working on the Schematic Designs by the end of March. In April, the design will move to the user groups, which will give more specific feedback on smaller parts of the design:
“And then user groups are the people who use the space. If we’re talking about science labs that science teachers. If we’re talking about the Media Center, that’s the media specialist and the folks who work in the Media Center. If we’re talking about the vocational classrooms, the folks who use those on a daily basis. And then they give the architects feedback. Like, no, we don’t like the light switch over here. We think it should be over here. Literally, the level of detail that they get to furniture, all of those kinds of things. Then the architects take that back. Some adjustments to the drawings a couple of times. Try to get to consensus.” – Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann at the 11/12/2024 School Board Meeting
Construction documents will be presented this fall, and construction is set to begin in phases in the summer of 2026.
The school has started a new web page that you can follow for construction updates. Go to their website, northfieldschools.org, and then click “reimagine NHS updates” in the upper right corner.
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