Osseo School District Begins Referendum Push for Building Improvements
Another year, another ballot question in Osseo Area Schools.
This time, the ask is to help fund building improvements.
“On November 7, we’re asking our Osseo Area School community members to reinvest in our schools,” said Osseo Superintendent Kim Hiel. “We have critical needs in our buildings, currently, that need additional help in order for us to be able to give our schools and students the learning environments that they need.”
The district’s plan is called “Building a Better Future.” At Osseo Senior High, Hiel said one of the goals would be to redo the main entrance.
“As you see, they’re able to come into the vestibule,” Hiel said, while pointing to the main entrance. “We do have where they’re able to be buzzed in, but as they come in, they’re actually in the lobby of the school before they go into the office over here.”
If the bond passes, the main office would be the first stop for visitors after they’re buzzed in.
When visitors are buzzed into Osseo Senior High, they walk right into the lobby, rather than entering the main office.
Meanwhile, one of the other major upgrades would come to the school’s media center, which district officials call outdated.
“We just need to upgrade how our students learn, because our students are quite different from how our students were 20 years ago,” Hiel said. “The needs are different.”
Essentially, every school in the district would receive some sort of building improvement if voters approve the ballot measure.
However, approving the measure would mean that a homeowner in a median-priced home of $300,000 would pay an additional $7 per month in property taxes.
“That impacts a family,” Hiel admitted. “Our goal is for our community to see they’re reinvesting in our school systems. Our school systems help to develop better property and more people coming in and home value. So we see it as a reciprocal of being able to benefit each other.”
The district has community informational meetings scheduled in the coming weeks where they can educate voters on some of those potential benefits.
“We just want to make sure our taxpayers are informed of what we’re asking and what the need is,” Hiel said.
The upcoming informational sessions are Oct. 3 at Osseo Senior High and Oct. 11 at Maple Grove Senior High. Both events are at 6 p.m.
Related: Osseo School Board Mulls $225M Referendum
Osseo Senior High School
