“We want to make sure, when we put on an addition and we adjust (school attendance) boundaries that you know we hit that sweet spot,” said Anoka-Hennepin Schools Chief Operations Officer Greg Cole. “I would say Blaine is unique, where it’s just really exploded and so that’s something we saw on the horizon.”
As city council members debated the possible need for portable classrooms at the school, and what the city would require to allow that to happen, even temporarily, Mayor Tim Sanders offered this rebuke of the district for what he deemed poor planning regarding the Sunrise attendance area:
“I would highly encourage the school district to get on it,” said Sanders. “There are a lot more homes and a lot more families coming to that part of the school district. Why they built a school to the size of the current population is confounding, but it’s the problem they find themselves in. We’re happy to try to be a solution, but they’ve got to be proactive and get on it.”
Sunrise opened in 2019, and already the district has moved kindergarten classes to Johnsville Elementary to try to alleviate overcrowding, in addition to moving up the timeline of possibly re-drawing attendance lines.
Among the plans the district submitted to city council was also a design that will allow the school’s 16 or more buses to exit northbound on Lever Street and then back over to Lexington Avenue on 131st Avenue once it’s completed within the next year.
“We can have most of those buses go north now, which is not an option currently,” said Cole, saying he hopes it clears up long traffic lines on Main Street to the immediate south of the school. He also acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have caused more parents to provide transportation for their kids to school, adding to the congestion.
“We anticipate a lot of our (parent) drivers will head north because they live in those areas,” he added.
Construction on the addition should begin this fall and be wrapped up in Fall 2023, Cole said.
