Facilities upgrades in plan for 'Summer Slam' at Grand Forks Public Schools

Apr. 28—GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks Public Schools will continue work on several major construction projects and plans to complete several facilities upgrades at existing buildings.

The district will proceed with construction of the new Valley Middle School, the Career Impact Academy, and the Child Nutrition Central Kitchen at the Mark Sanford Education Center, as well as a series of mostly internal projects at its existing elementary, middle and high schools.

Building and Grounds Manager Jonathan Ellwein called it the "Summer Slam."

"We have a very short amount of time to get a lot of projects done when kids are out of school," Ellwein said. "So this is fairly typical."

Ellwein gave an update on the facilities projects to the Grand Forks School Board at a Facilities Committee meeting Monday.

Alongside the new construction, Ellwein said the district plans to replace HVAC systems at Kelly and Lewis and Clark elementary schools, perform roof replacements for Phoenix and Ben Franklin elementary schools and Red River High School, and replace carpeting at Winship and Lake Agassiz elementary schools and Central High School.

It will also continue energy-saving lighting replacements across district buildings, adding automatic sensor systems and replacing fluorescent bulbs with cost-saving LEDs.

The lighting upgrades and HVAC work are both covered under a $17 million guaranteed energy savings program which will use cost-savings from the new infrastructure to pay back the installation costs over the next several years.

One of the more significant projects planned for the summer is a plan to replace Winship's decaying pressboard exterior siding with fiber cement panels.

"I'm trying to make a more concerted effort to bring some more pride to our North End schools," Ellwein told the Herald. "There's often a perception that we forget them or leave them out there by themselves and I want them to feel like they have beautiful and welcoming and good schools too."

The Winship envelope, carpeting, and roof projects will be paid out of the district's building fund.

The Valley and Central Kitchen projects are being funded via a $79 million referendum passed by voters last May.

That referendum also provided for $18 million in building security upgrades. Ellwein said the district is still in the early stages of that project, but is working on upgrading access control with measures like new key fobs.

The slate of summer projects is meant to minimize disruption to students, though summer schools have been consolidated and Ellwein told board members the playground at Winship would be closed for the summer.

Ellwein said he expected most of the projects on existing facilities to be complete by the end of the summer, though work on the HVAC systems at Kelly and Lewis and Clark may continue into the school year in areas of the school not occupied by students.

Central Kitchen is expected to be completed in November; the CIA and Valley Middle School projects are set for completion in April and December 2025, respectively.