MANKATO — Ninth graders rushed up a hill leading to the temporary entrance to Mankato West High School on Monday. The freshmen were arriving for the first day of classes during a school year that is likely to look different from those in the past.
Since March, Mankato West has doubled as a high school and a construction zone, with the district looking to work through this school year to get the project wrapped up by the end of next summer.
“Right now the crews are working 10-hour days and have been working four or five days a week,” said Scott Hogen, West’s construction bond manager. “We will be going non-stop from here on until we’re done with the project.”
That project is a $105 million bond referendum passed in 2023 to improve facilities at schools across the district. At West, it includes construction of a new secured entrance, a gym and renewed music spaces, among others.
High school started this week, about a week earlier than it otherwise would have, with freshmen coming back Monday and all other grades back Tuesday. The pre-Labor Day start is something the district is doing in order for the school year to end earlier than usual to give crews a “super summer” to complete the work by the 2026-27 school year.
The good news is the district says construction shouldn’t disturb the students all that much. Students in band and choir will need to find a new space for rehearsals, likely moving to the auditorium for this year, and there may be some noise pollution.
Another change will come for the West tennis teams. The high school’s courts needed upgrading anyway, officials say, so crews were allowed to place machinery and other equipment on the courts. For the next one to two years, the tennis players will play at Dakota Meadows Middle School before moving back to new courts at the school.
The bad news is the project is falling behind schedule, and it’s already impacting the school. Officials at West had hoped to hold an open house Aug. 20, but had to cancel that event. One reason for the cancellation was that the school’s parking lot wasn’t finished yet. Another: mold in the auditorium.
“We had some flooding issues here due to the rains, and that all took place in the basement areas; we did have some fungal growth in the auditorium,” Hogen said. “We had an environmental company come in and clean everything. We ran air samples on Sunday and everything’s come back good.”
The company came in and tore apart much of the auditorium to clean it, and tore up carpeting in an adjoining classroom, according to the district. All of that cleaning and air testing, along with painting the new parking lot, was wrapped up on Sunday — just one day before students came back.
This summer’s weather also has proven to be a challenge for the construction. In July, Hogen noted the project was about “15 days behind” due to rain and finding an unexpected water main. Now, after a week that saw multiple rain storms, the timeline has fallen behind even more.
“We probably are about three to four weeks behind schedule right now. (We’re) working with our contractors, and we’re looking at areas where we can start picking up some of this time and make up some of that lost time that we had due to weather,” Hogen said.
The workers hope to have the walls of the secured entrance up by December before moving on to getting the walls for the new gym, storm shelter and locker room up by late January, he said.
Snow is another problem that can set projects like this back, and it was one of the concerns Hogen mentioned for the future of the construction.
“I’m hoping we have a winter like we had last winter. No snow and 40 degrees,” he said. “That would be great.”
Amid all these changes, at least one thing from last year remained: a wall of encouraging notes, put up by West’s mental health connections club, reassuring incoming freshmen that “it’s ok to be sad” and “you are loved.”