Lake Elmo Elementary principal flags staffing, capacity concerns; board awards $2.92 million earthwork contract for new building

The board heard an update on Lake Elmo Elementary School and awarded the earthwork contract for the school’s new building site.

The school’s principal (name not identified in the transcript) told the board Lake Elmo’s enrollment is 719 students and said the building is over capacity. “We are above capacity,” the principal said, and added that Lake Elmo is the largest elementary school in the district and will open a new building in the fall of 2026.

The principal described program offerings at Lake Elmo, including a dual-language Spanish immersion program (Amigos Unidos) and an English track, the district’s medically complex “Pony Room” (serving kindergarten through fifth grade), and an added Communication Integration Program (CIP) site for students on the autism spectrum. She said students of color represent roughly 40.2% of the student body and that Hispanic/Latinx students make up about 20% of that figure. She described challenges including staffing shortages across paraprofessionals and related services (speech, OT, PT), noting the school had 23 new staff start this year and reported four paraprofessional vacancies that have persisted.

On special programs she explained staffing ratios for medically complex students are small — “2 students to 1 staff member” in the Pony Room — and that those ratios make filling para positions critical. The principal also described the BARR program (a multi-year, schoolwide approach used in the building), responsive classroom practices and the school’s MTSS alignment, and raised curriculum alignment issues between the English and Spanish-immersion tracks in math and literacy.

Following the school update the district’s construction staff reported on bidding for the new Lake Elmo Elementary. The district told the board it issued bids for 39 separate work scopes for the project; the earthwork scope was pulled from the full set so the district could start site mobilization in February. There were nine bids for the earthwork package. A district representative said, “The lowest responsible bidder was Park Construction Company out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for $2,922,700.” The board moved to award that earthwork contract to Park Construction Company to allow site work to begin; the motion passed unanimously.

Facilities staff said the remaining 38 work scopes will be presented at the board’s next meeting (January 21). Staff reported the district’s current assessment is that the project remains on budget and on schedule for the planned sequence of work, and that mobilization and initial dirt-moving are anticipated as soon as site conditions allow in February.

Ending: The Lake Elmo update combined program and staffing challenges with the formal contract award that advances site work for the new school; staff will return with the remaining subcontract packages and further schedule/budget detail at the next meeting.