Students speak, Monke listens

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Will Fergus Falls eighth graders need to eat with their older siblings at the high school next year? What color will the lockers in the new secondary school be? Where can students find the elevator?

Middle schoolers have a lot of questions about the district’s building project, as Principal Dean Monke knows all too well. That’s why Monke is making the rounds in March, meeting with students to discuss what upcoming construction will mean to them.

“We want to give you some idea of what’s happening next year,” Monke told a class of seventh graders Tuesday. “Everybody here is going to be inconvenienced a little bit — notice I said everybody.”

For next year’s seventh and eighth graders, that means a move to the high school’s “C” wing. These students, Monke said, will be largely separated from students in grades nine through 12, with different class schedules and lunch periods.

Still, there will be adjustments, like fewer assemblies (the middle school auditorium will be out of commission), no recess (there’s no place to go) and the addition of snack times (middle schoolers will eat on either end of the high school lunch schedule).

“If you’ve got a problem being hungry in the morning, have I got a plan for you,” said Monke, who was greeted with cheers when he told seventh graders they’d be eating lunch at 10:45 a.m. next year.

The district will host a Right Start orientation for sixth, seventh and eighth graders in mid-August, Monke said, allowing students to spend some time in their new buildings before school begins. Seventh and eighth graders will join high school freshmen in starting school a day before upperclassmen.

Monke’s classroom visits also include discussion of the new secondary school, complete with posters of the building’s design.

“If we’re going to go through all this hassle, we’d better hope that something good will come out of it,” Monke said, “and I think there will be.”

The seventh graders Monke spoke with Tuesday will enter the new school as ninth graders when the building opens in 2009. That building will include separate wings for middle and high school students, a three-court gymnasium, security cameras, a host of windows and more.

“In this ladies bathroom there’ll be 17 stalls,” Monke said, pointing to a heavily trafficked area near the future gyms and wrestling room. “No waiting. You’ve got to love it.”