Community, schools begin facility planning
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POLSON — School District 23 held its first day of facility planning on Feb. 25 in the North Lake County Library District conference room.
“This process is to come up with a facilities master plan. That’s the point,” said Superintendent Linda Reksten, who heads up the Polson School District.
About 35 community members, including Polson Mayor Heather Knutson and Polson City Manager Mark Shrives, district administrators and school board members spent the day brainstorming with Nick Salmon, CTA Architects and Engineers. Salmon is an architect specializing in the design of educational facilities.
Salmon divided the group into tables and they worked through topics such as project based learning, time and technology, grade grouping and looping and school transformation. They ended the day considering what works in the Polson schools, what could be better and what is better.
Then Salmon and Reksten held a recap session from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the library for people who could not attend the all-day session.
At the recap session, community members were asked to bring up issues with the facility design. One concern was students entering the elementary counselor offices through the nurse’s office. Not enough space, classrooms without windows, wasted space in the Polson High School lobby and the location of school offices were also mentioned.
“In general,” Salmon said, “this process we lead communities through is focused first on education and then facilities.”
Salmon has found that if groups consider only facilities they end up with more of what they already have.
This meeting was the assess phase, according to Salmon.
At the March 13 session, the group will “explore the world beyond Polson,” such as an early childhood program in Great Falls.
The last piece is the apply phase, to “apply what we’ve learned to what you actually have,” Salmon explained.
The group will meet two more times — on March 13 and March 25, with final recommendations made on March 25. There will be recap sessions each evening.
