New Pleasantview Elementary School To Open for 2022-2023 School Year

(KNSI) – The new Pleasantview Elementary School in Sauk Rapids is finishing work on the outside and will be ready for students in the fall. Sauk Rapids-Rice School District Superintendent Bradley Bergstrom says the building will be an asset to the community.

“It’s going to be an amazing beautiful structure. And quite an asset, for not only for us as a school district but, for the community and in the neighborhood where it’s at.”

He says the community will use the school’s gym space, playground, and basketball courts. The new $37 million building replaces a 70-year-old school by the same name. Voters approved the new 118,000 square foot building in November of 2019.

The school is being constructed on the same 11-acre lot as the old elementary. Superintendent Bergstrom says two things were fundamentally important in creating the new building.

“We wanted to make sure that this building was going to last for 70 years as well. There’s a lot of really long term thinking that went into the building to make sure the new Pleasantview will be there every bit as long as the current Pleasantview. The second thing was to make sure that we stayed in that neighborhood. We heard very clearly from the community that keeping the school in that neighborhood was really important.”

The school district will begin offering virtual video tours of the project next month. The district plans to give in-person tours of the new school in the fall.

Teachers should be able to move into their new classrooms in August. The school will house around 700 students with room to expand to hold 800 students as the district grows. The old Pleasantview building will be razed and turned into a parking lot and green space for the new school in June.

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