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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

T-S Elementary awarded $109,000 state safety grant

Marcus White
Posted 10/11/18

REGIONAL - The Tower-Soudan School was the only school in ISD 2142 awarded a piece of Gov. Mark Dayton’s $25 million safety grant program this month. At Tuesday evening’s meeting of the St. Louis …

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T-S Elementary awarded $109,000 state safety grant

Posted

REGIONAL - The Tower-Soudan School was the only school in ISD 2142 awarded a piece of Gov. Mark Dayton’s $25 million safety grant program this month. At Tuesday evening’s meeting of the St. Louis County School Board, Superintendent Reggie Engebritson announced the $109,200 award.

She said the breakdown of the funding is as follows:

$12,499 for public address system upgrades.

$48,360 for communication access control, including adding strobes to interior and exterior areas where alarms may not be heard because of noise.

 $19,169 for impact resistant glazing on entry doors and doors in administrative areas of the school. The district specifically said the glazing should be able to withstand 30 minutes of attempted entry.

$16,000 on bullet proof glass at the school’s main entrance.

$13,000 on improved wireless communication for emergency responders in schools. Currently the school has dead zones where personnel cannot communicate.

According to the Department of Education, 1,166 viable applications were received from across the state with only 137 school outside the metro receiving any money from the program.

The district will have until the end of the school year to spend the money or else the money will be given back to the state to redistribute to wait-listed schools.

Engebritson did not say when the district would bring bids to the board but said they would be actively working on it in the coming weeks.

The Ely School District’s Industrial Arts Building proposal received $495,000, and was the only other school building in the region to receive safety grant funds.

Other business

 Engebritson informed the board that another full-time teacher would need to be hired at South Ridge after the fifth grade reached 55 students.

 Open enrollment at the Cherry School will be closed for the remainder of the year.

 An update on the Northeast Range roofing project revealed extensive weather delays and leaks in the already-completed sections. Engebritson said the contractor has been working with the district to address the problem once drier weather prevails.

 District staff will attend a joint meeting with the Virginia, Eveleth-Gilbert and Mt. Iron- Buhl districts to discuss plans by Virginia and Eveleth to build an “academy school” in the area, modeled after a vocational program in the Alexandria School District.