Local News

A tour of NU Public School summer renovations

NEW ULM – Superintendent Sean Koster led a tour around the four New Ulm Public School buildings to highlight summer renovations Thursday. 

Money for renovations came from Minnesota LTFM (Long-Term Facilities Maintenance) funds. These funds are strictly for upkeep, and cannot be spent on new projects or staff funding. 

Starting at the middle school, Koster showed off the side patio, which was redone. Prior to the renovation, deterioration of the patio resulted in student injury. The revamped patio adds to what Koster referred to as beautification of the district. In addition, the patio creates a space for classes to learn outdoors. 

"We have tables up here and kids come out and use them," he said. "Art classes come out here, English classes come out and write."

Behind the building, Koster pointed out a garage that was torn down. The demolition of the garage, which took just under $10,000 to do, is part of a longer process to fix up the back of the building. 

In front of the building, a new patio was put in to prevent a "mud bath". 

"Everytime it rained it was chips and mud and water. [The patio] is going to clean some of it up," Koster said. 

Inside the middle school, three rooms were re-carpeted, along with two rooms at Jefferson. Jefferson also had camera work done. 

Moving over to Washington Learning Center, the tour continued. Koster highlighted the roof renovation, which was not part of the LTFM fund. 

Inside the building, $37,000 went into downstairs doors. Koster led the group to the gym to point out the skylights that were redone during roof renovation. The gym was illuminated, despite all overhead lights being off. Koster also took time to thank NUBA for their donation of basketball boards and hoops. 

Another change that was not part of LTFM funds was the relocation of the smart room to the media center's location. There was no cost to the relocation. 

"We can highlight the smart room to parents," Koster said "and talk about the connection between movement and intellectual brain activity."

Koster said the smart room was previously located in the basement of the building, which had no windows.

Koster's tour concluded at the high school. Koster pointed out two ticket booths that were created by Career and Technical Education (CTE) students. The ticket booths will prevent the need to move the booths back and forth between the track and softball entrances, which is what had been done previous years. 

Koster also showed the track maintenance. 

"You start by resurfacing all of the track and then you come back and put the lines on the track. $83,000 worth and this is an every ten years kind of thing that we have to do," Koster said. 

Koster stressed that all renovation decisions are made carefully. 

"Every year we're trying to spend money wisely. We're also trying to put our $50,000 a year back into long-term facilities maintenance and into the capital to make sure we're building those back," Koster said. 

School for 5th and 9th graders begins Monday, August 31. Kindergarten starts Wednesday, September 2. All other grades begin Tuesday, September 1.