NEVIS — Voters across Northern Minnesota will vote "yes" or "no" on funding requests from school districts on ballots now through Tuesday, Nov. 3.
While many districts are pursuing operating levies and the entire state will decide on a constitutional amendment to increase school funding, Nevis School District is pursuing a bonding referendum — a funding mechanism to build new schools or renovate existing ones.
Nevis voters will be asked three separate questions as the district seeks to improve its building in a $17 million bonding referendum. The estimated tax impact on residents in the district is $24 a month on a $400,000 home.
The present-day school building was designed in 1987 to serve 300 students. Today, Nevis Public School serves around 600 students, from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. Many families opt to open-enroll their students in Nevis.
With the student body being so much larger, Superintendent Ranae Seykora — in her second year leading the school district — said she and her predecessors have tried to be creative with the available space for years.
"Our social worker, her office is a converted custodial closet," she listed as an example.
During a tour of the school Tuesday, Oct. 27, Seykora discussed the changes she hopes to see if voters say "yes" as she showed the converted spaces to address student and staff needs.
A foster grandparent was working in an airlock with a reading buddy. An educator was working on reading skills with three students in a vestibule. Head Cook Patricia Havnes stores her recipes in a thrifted filing cabinet, in a small hallway converted into an office, right next to a staff bathroom. Storage rooms and closets, Seykora said, have been converted to address small group needs.
"The way that we deliver instruction has changed," she said. "It's not like one teacher in front of your 25 students teaching the same lesson to every kid because as we know now, every kid is at different levels."
During lunch, a group of high school students opted to sit on the floor in the hallways rather than squeeze into the crowded cafeteria.
Even with staggered start times, Seykora said the activity in the school's cafeteria and gym facilities is constant.
"For 25 years, our cafeteria is packed, our gym space is packed, but the open enrollment brings us to $2 million or more in state aid," she said. "We're able to have the programs that we have and the sports teams and the activities."
Seykora touted 40 students participating in the school's robotics programs, adding that they, too, work on their machines in hallways.
The request is a second attempt after a $41.55 million ask wasrejected by voters in April 2025. Seykora said school administrators went back to the drawing board to focus on needs: such as improving the cafeteria and kitchen facilities, securing entrances, renovating bathrooms, updating the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and expanding the gym facilities.
The first $11.1 million question focuses on repurposing and remodeling existing classrooms, renovating and securing front entry points and offices, as well as improving the cafeteria and kitchens and HVAC. The second question asks for $6 million more, to improve gymnasium facilities, and the third question would improve the bus maintenance garage for $425,000.
"We don't have the air quality, the temperature control for some rooms," Seykora said. "Some rooms used to be storage rooms and now they're converted into classrooms, so they're freezing because they never had the ductwork put in."
Sixth grader Kinley Haldeman and her friends said they would love to see another gym.
"When I play basketball, we have to wait 'til 8 o'clock [at night], and then we can have our practice," she said. "We have to wait for ... for the high schoolers, because they have the real season."
Seykora said the feedback from the open houses on the referendum has been positive, and she hopes to see voters make the investment with their ballots.
"A grandparent told me he had four grandchildren enrolled here," Seykora said. "He told me: 'Back then, someone invested in my education. I want to do the same for my grandkids.'"
East Grand Forks is another Northern Minnesota school district seeking a three-part bonding referendum, with Walker-Hackensack-Akeley, Pequot Lakes and Brainerd among the several districts seeking approval to increase operating levies.
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