LYND?- The Lynd School Board is moving forward with an addition to its current facility in order to make room for a projected 32 percent increase in students by 2022. The board approved the project at its February meeting, according to Principal Jason Swenson, and is currently working on the project’s proposed layout.

“Our enrollment has increased,” Swenson said. “To have 30 kids in one class is huge, and we’re looking at a possible 25 (new students) for kindergarten (next fall).”

Swenson said when he started working at the Lynd School in 2008, the average class size was about a dozen students. He said the current graduating eighth-grade class of 15 is one of the largest he has seen. Looking forward to next fall, Swenson said he has 30 students going from first to second grade – more than double Lynd’s past average class size.

“When I started we had a total of 110 students, and now we have 202,” Swenson said. “It’s a good problem to have, but it’s also a headache with spacing needs and kids’ needs too. You need to have decent classroom space.”

The current plan would add two classrooms, include a remodel of current office space into a larger classroom, and the construction of new offices and a secure entrance.

Superintendent Bruce Houck said the school doesn’t have enough space to serve its current students at February’s board meeting, and Monday after the March board meeting he said the addition is necessary to make room for the school’s incoming students.

“It’s not enough, but it’s what we can afford,” Houck said.

The estimated price is around $800,000, Houck said after Monday’s school board meeting. Current funding from the state and a portion of reserves will be used to pay for the proposed project, Houck said, and that “there is a lease levy in there too.”

“It’s so much a student that will go towards the building,” Houck said. “The tax payers pay it but the state is part of it.”

But just how much, if possibly more, the taxpayers will pay is not yet determined.

State Statute 126C.40 allows a school district to request permission from the commissioner of education to an additional property tax levy to fund the cost of leasing a building or land.

However, recent changes to the law allow school districts to build and expand facilities through what is essentially a lease-to-own agreement. Additions that are 20 percent or less of the existing facility’s square footage can be approved by just a school board, while projects over 20 percent of the existing space must go to a referendum and public vote.

The total levy for a district in a given year may not exceed $212 per pupil according to the statute. However the commissioner of education can authorize a higher per-pupil levy if a district is experiencing enrollment growth, if the purpose of the increased levy is in the long-term interest of the public or district, or other benefits to the district or local government.

How much of the school’s reserves would be used along with a lease levy is not yet known. A call to the Minnesota Department of Education’s Office of Communications was not returned before deadline.

It is estimated that construction on the addition will begin in mid May after school is out. The expected completion date is set around Christmas of 2016.