St. Paul Public Schools soon will begin designing a new, multi-story elementary school for the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, as well as a major renovation that will create a new middle school option in Summit-University.
The school board on Tuesday night agreed to move forward with the design process, which is tied to the recently approved closure of six schools over the next two years.
Next fall, Bruce Vento Elementary will absorb students from John A. Johnson, which is closing due to low enrollment. In early 2024, the district plans to begin construction on a new Bruce Vento, just east of the existing building.
The school will have room for around 800 students, or five sections at each grade, K-5. Officials also want to build an early learning hub on the same site, but they haven’t decided whether it’ll be in the same building.
As the new school opens in fall 2025, the district will tear down the old building and make room for parking, parent dropoff and pickup lanes and play areas.
Facilities director Tom Parent said the district will place an emphasis on environmental sustainability with the new Bruce Vento, perhaps by making it a carbon-neutral school building.
The district will engage stakeholders in the building design process early next year. It’ll be months before a rough cost estimate is available.
Bruce Vento was supposed to have been renovated by now, but the district paused planning in 2019 after concluding it was going to cost too much because of the building’s unusual design, which covers many levels and includes slopes and heavy timbers.
Board member Zuki Ellis said a new building with a K-5 capacity of 800 feels “way too big.”
Facility planning manager Kathy Wallace said they want to make sure there’s enough room for all students from Bruce Vento and John A. Johnson. Those schools now have a combined K-5 enrollment of 680.
Wallace said the merged school should establish a better racial balance. Last year, half of Bruce Vento students were Asian, while Black students, at 40 percent, predominated at John A. Johnson.
OBAMA RENOVATION
The design process also will get underway soon at Obama Elementary, which is set to close after the 2022-23 school year.
A significant renovation should begin in early 2024 that takes the school from an elementary capacity of 875 to about 1,000.
Construction should wrap up by summer 2025, but it’s not clear when students would move back in. It could reopen in fall 2024, during construction, or after the dust clears in fall 2025.
When it does reopen, it will be as both a Montessori elementary school and a community middle school that caters to students who are accustomed to the Montessori approach. The students will come from J.J. Hill Montessori, which is absorbing 170 students from Cherokee Heights Montessori next fall as Cherokee becomes a small West Side community school.
The district has no plans for reusing the J.J. Hill building beyond 2024 or 2025.
In addition to J.J. Hill and John A. Johnson, the following schools are due to close after this school year due to declining enrollment: Galtier and Jackson elementaries, Parkway Montessori Middle School and the lower campus of L’Etoile du Nord French Immersion.