District pledged 4th gift

Published 4:14 pm Saturday, August 8, 2009

The Hormel Foundation is proceeding with the fourth phase in a series of donations to the Austin Public School District totaling nearly $4 million.

If approved by the Austin School Board on Monday, Ellis Middle School will receive $275,000 for new science labs and classroom renovation, to begin this spring. Austin Packaging Co. has also committed $50,000; Hormel Foods Corp. will contribute $150,000; and Richard Knowlton, chairman of The Hormel Foundation, has pledged 75,000 in expected sales from a book he has authored.

Thanks to donations from the foundation, a $1.5 million state-of-the-art science lab and classroom project opened last year at Austin High School.

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The foundation has also donated $1.3 million to the University of Minnesota Fellowship Program for teachers to pursue master’s degrees, and $810,000 for programs of excellence for gifted and talented students.

Ellis principal Katie Berglund said the latest project has been about a year in the works, and will give middle school students a jump-start on an advanced science education before they enter high school.

“The great thing about this at Ellis is we’ve already implemented some programmatic changes with science, so this just works,” Berglund said. “The science rooms are very small and the lab stations are in the perimeter of the room, so it is not conducive to lab station work.”

Two new labs will be constructed and three classrooms will be remodeled. Ellis added a new advanced physics class for seventh-graders last fall.

“It’s ‘team-taught’ between the science teacher and the industrial technology teacher,” Berglund said.

Ellis staff have also been working with U of M professors to develop a chemistry course for eighth-graders this year. The class will be “team-taught” as well.

Berglund said the project will mean more students can enroll in these advanced classes. They are looking at the most efficient way to utilize each classroom.

“This will allow our sixth grade science instruction in the existing labs we have,” Berglund explained. “We have an increasing enrollment forming, so this will help with that as well.”

Although enrollment is slightly down this year — 950 — and is expected to be low next year as well, enrollment will “skyrocket” to about 1,086 by 2014-1015, Berglund said. The elementary schools are anticipating an influx of students from Woodson Kindergarten, and are planning to add classrooms.

A press conference will be scheduled to formally announce the Ellis project, Berglund said.