Planning for the future is important
In Albany Area Schools, planning for the future is ongoing. And in our district, we pride ourselves on building a strong community, establishing rich tradition, and achieving legendary success. As part of our district’s strategic plan, we’re committed to the following:
Mental health & wellness:
Expand our current SEL (Social & Emotional Learning) programs and build deeper support for the mental health of students, staff, and our community and adapt as needs change.
School district facilities and learning spaces:
We need to ensure our facilities meet the needs of our learners through further exploration of options.
Personalized learning:
Continue to implement and enhance personalized learning opportunities for our students.
Portrait of a graduate:
Encourage students to embed and demonstrate the Albany Area Schools Portrait of a Graduate skills E-12.
Real-world experiences:
Leverage community and business relationships and seek additional collaborative opportunities to enhance real-world experiences.
By the numbers in Albany Area Schools:
16:1 student to teacher ratio: we pride ourselves on small class sizes, which allows us to customize our teaching methods and gives students the opportunity to learn E-12 curriculum in a way that’s suitable for them.
97.9% graduation rate: our college and career readiness programming helps expose students to potential careers before they graduate, contributing to our high graduation rate. We offer 42 college credits to our students. In addition, we have 31 local businesses that work in our district to offer annual internships.
40+ student organizations: from band to our Baking and Cooking Club, we provide our students with access to over 40 clubs and teams to develop skills and build community.
80% participation: our students are incredibly active, and approximately 80% participate in activities such as football, basketball, and more.
58%+ teachers with Master’s Degrees or higher: our staff is top-notch, with more than 58% of our teachers with their Master’s Degrees or higher.
Consistently high academic scoring: The students of Albany Area Schools consistently score above the state average on reading, math, and science MCA tests.
So, what steps have we taken in this process?
“Our community passed a $33 million referendum with an 81% passage rate. The referendum expanded our middle/high school and included a seven-classroom addition to Albany Elementary to help prepare for additional growth. ”
“Conversations began about our facilities’ needs. We extensively examined our space needs and started to discuss possible solutions. ”
“Conversations around potential properties to meet our district’s needs took place. We toured alternate locations. In addition, other funding strategies were considered to meet our district’s needs in a fiscally-responsible way. ”
“We collected feedback through a community-wide survey. Approximately 940 community members responded to that survey, ultimately providing our district with great feedback.
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“Our facilities are a critical component of our overall strategic plan, and over the last four years, we’ve focused on finding a long-term solution to alleviate space needs at our elementary schools. We’ve taken several steps to reach the point we’re at today. These steps include enlisting a Community Facilities Task Force, holding various listening sessions and multiple public community meetings, gathering public feedback through a community survey, and completing other analyses, including demographics, educational adequacy, facility assessments, and more.
We hired project experts Ehlers, our district’s financial advisor, and ICS, a K-12 planning and project management firm, to assist in this process. We continued to refine the proposed plan based on stakeholder input, connected with local organizations to explore potential support or funding options, worked with Ehlers to finalize the funding for the project, developed and submitted the required project documentation to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) in the form of a Review & Comment document, and continued to gather feedback from our community and stakeholders.
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“To accommodate our additional space needs, open enrollment was closed at Albany Elementary. ”
“Open enrollment was closed district-wide to accommodate our district’s space needs. ”
“Conversations began around purchasing and renovating the former Albany hospital to serve as an Early Learning Center. The former hospital is located at 300 3rd Avenue, sits on just over six acres, and is adjacent to over 60 acres of City park space.”
“We held a community informational meeting with local residents to discuss the process and potential plans. The recording and presentation from that meeting can be found below:Informational Meeting - Recording
Informational Meeting - Presentation
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“During the school board meeting, the board approved the formal resolution calling for a referendum on August 9. In addition, an agreement for the purchase of the former hospital facility was executed, contingent on voter approval of the referendum on August 9. ”
“District residents approved the single-ballot question to acquire and renovate the former Albany hospital into an Early Learning Center to alleviate space constraints at Avon Elementary and Albany Elementary. ”