TYLER — The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton District held the second of three scheduled listening sessions Wednesday night to discuss the $20 million bond referendum on the Nov. 5 election ballot to expand the preschool to 12th grade facility.

The facility underwent recent expansion construction, after voters in the district approved a $35 million bond in 2019 that merged the three previous schools into one and opened in 2021.

The new request comes from an increase of enrollment that is causing overcrowding, and would address a variety of improvements: Expansion of 14 additional classrooms for a variety of areas including special education and functional life skills, enlarging the elementary music classroom, relocating the secondary band and vocal into pre-existing classrooms, additional student and staff bathrooms on each new floor and wing, full-size gymnasium, larger fitness center, larger storage room, a remodel of the existing fitness center into a counselor center, and an increase of security and control of the south parking lot.

“One of you might be asking, ‘Why RTR? Why are all these kids coming to RTR?,'” Secondary Principal Rick Gossen said. “There is something for everyone here, and that really kind of makes us, as a small school, very unique. We should be very proud of that … We’re very well rounded here, and we have programs for a lot of different kinds of kids.”

The total enrollment this year for PreK-12 is 721 students, which is an approximate 116 student increase in the last five years, and about 60 more since the new building opened for the 2021-22 school year.

“I’ve only been here two years, beginning my third year, and when I came here two years ago, the sixth-12th enrollment, which is what I’m in charge of, was right around 350 kids,” Gossen said. “We’ve picked up about 50 kids in two years, and if you’d have told me that was going to happen, I would have bet the under.”

The open enrollment this school year is 172 students coming in, and 107 out, for a positive gain of 65.

“The net is about 65 students, and those 65 students bring in roughly $900,000,” RTR Superintendent David Marlette said. “Of those 172 that are coming in, 48% and almost half, are from districts that don’t have a secondary school, such as Lake Benton, such as Ivanhoe, such as Lynd … We have 107 people that live in our district that choose to send their kids out, that are paying taxes in our district.”

A large public question and concern is the source of the money and impact on taxes. If passed, the bonding bill will be split between taxpayers and the Ag2School tax credit.

Ag2School is a state-wide credit that districts utilize, and gives farmers tax relief while providing schools with building funding. If the facility proposal is approved, the credit will pay just over half of the amount, and taxpayers are responsible for 49.5%, meaning Ag2School will fund about $10.6 million, and local taxes will pay about $9.4 million.

As an example given by Marlette, a residential homestead with a $150,000 market value would have an approximate tax increase of $12 a month, or $148 yearly, and varies up or down depending on the homestead. An Agricultural homestead that is $10,000 for acreage would see a .16 cent monthly increase, or an extra $1.90 a year.

“The Legislature has really helped rural Minnesota to be more affordable to build. We’re 84% rural farmers, and so this is exactly why the legislature put in Ag2School,” Marlette said. “They wanted to equalize the cities and their ability to build school buildings in rural Minnesota by doing this … It’ll still be 56% lower than what we said back in 2018.”

Another concern brought up was why these improvements were not included in the first reconstruction.

“When we started this (first construction), … 575 was our enrollment at that time. 575 when we built the school. We built it with the intentions of it being up to 700, so that was a stretch,” RTR school board vice-chair Craig Hess said. “We felt at that time, we were way over building. We’re sitting now at 721 kids … We thought that was big enough. It’s not a mistake. It’s an awesome thing (to increase enrollment) to happen and to be that fortune.”

Marlette also mentioned he received questions of transportation costs, to which he said it costs about $854 to transport the 172 open-enrolled students, and $2.41 per mile, but does not raise an issue due to the $900,000 net-income to the district from the increased enrollment.

Another note was the current facility does not have an improved storm shelter, which would be put in place with the full-size gym.

“When we built this building, there were no guidelines or rules for us to have it,” Marlette said. “A year after we built this building, the state came out with that requirement … If we add on to our building, we are required to do this.”

Athletic Director Darren Baartman said the additional space would also be used for community purposes, as he gets regular requests for not only sport uses, but also 4H, driver’s education and boy scouts.

Gossen said the addition of a career center would be beneficial, to allow the counselor and social workers more space to work, as they currently have one office in the main building for the entire student body.

Elementary Principal Cristy Olsen talked about the special education improvements.

“If you have a child who has significant special needs, whether it’s behavior … Whether it’s functional life skills, they need different spaces to be successful and to help them learn life skills,” Olsen said. “There’s different levels of service that you provide, level one, two, three and four … When you hit a level four placement, that’s an out of district placement. But, our level three’s are intense, and they take a lot of work, a lot of manpower, a lot of space to help it be a good place for them … We have an occupational therapist, we have a physical therapist, we have an early childhood Special Ed teacher. They’re all in one room. We need space for those services.”

Marlette commented on the school’s recent success in testing, and he said RTR was 45 points above the state average in academics the last school year and was sixth in southwest Minnesota, and he said that plays a part in the high staff and facility quality.

In addition to a group of community members attending the listening session in-person, there were roughly 130 people watching the livestream online.

The next and final listening session before voting is at 7 p.m. Oct 23, at the RTR Performing Arts Center.

“The runs we’ve had the last two and three years, that doesn’t happen very often. We’ve won multiple state championships, our speech team has done outstanding, our one-act play won the state last year, that doesn’t happen,” Marlette said. “Why I tell you that story is I want you to understand that the money you spend for this school district is not going to waste. We’re doing an excellent job with the money that you give to our schools.”