Shakopee School Board Plots How Best to Configure Planned New High School

No one's in dispute: With more students projected, the Shakopee School District needs more space.

And the school board has already made up its mind to create a new facility as opposed to expanding Shakopee High into a "mega-school."

But school board members are still undecided about how to split up the student body once the new facility opens (hopefully) in fall 2017, the Shakopee Valley News reported.

The decision is between two models.

One, the traditional model, would be to leave Shakopee High School as is and turn the new school into a ninth- through 12th grade high school with capacity for about 1,600 students.

The other choice, the "stacked" model, would turn both Shakopee High and the new building into a two-grade schools so that students would attend 9th and 10th grade at one school and 11th and 12th at another.

The Shakopee Valley News has more about the decision-making process:

Thompson has enlisted a group of teachers, administrators and parents to visit White Bear Lake, which uses a “stacked” high school model. Thompson asked for School Board members join in the visit on Feb. 26. The group will also visit Lakeville Area Public School’s two high schools for a closer look at the split model.

After collecting information from White Bear Lake and Lakeville and some other possible districts, the district plans to go to the community for feedback. Thompson said he is working with Decision Resources Ltd., a marketing and research firm out of Minneapolis, to conduct a community survey. The survey will include both a paper survey, sent out by mail or email, and a plan for one-on-one phone conversations.