By Erin Schmidtke

There is a section of Eden Prairie Schools’ Administrative Services Center called the sheep shed. A farmer suggested the design in 1951 during his time on the School Board. The sheep shed used to serve as classrooms. Eden Prairie did not have a football team during this time. High school students would step in as substitute teachers when instructors of lower grades were absent. In later years, other schools opened throughout the city and the sheep shed filled the role of a warehouse and copy center.

By Nov. 1, 2008, it will once again become a building that directly impacts students’ learning and development.

The sheep shed is the future home of student registration, the teaching and learning department, and several conference rooms. This is because the old offices are the site of new classrooms for the Spanish Immersion School, which has to grow to accommodate the incoming third-grade students.

Other school buildings will also be updated for a new school year.

Prairie View Elementary School will receive 12 new roof replacements. The district will also refurbish or replace seven of the rooftop units.

Eden Lake Elementary is replacing heating coils and air conditioning units on top of the building. These devices determine the amount of fresh air that will reach students.

Jim Anderson is the director of facilities and safety for Eden Prairie Schools. He explained that if the air circulation units are not working well, CO2 levels grow too high, which makes students and teachers less alert. He said, “We want to provide enough fresh air so the learning environment is a good one.”

Next year, Cedar Ridge Elementary School will receive the same treatment. Eden Prairie Schools also plans for Oak Point Intermediate School to have almost $2 million of roof work done.

All buildings will be ready for students by the beginning of the school year, except for the office space, which will open on Nov. 1. Until then, the staff will be relocated throughout the school district.

The school district is funding this and other projects through a deferred maintenance referendum that passed in 2004. They have $20 million dollars to spend on system updates.

The Eden Prairie School District is trying to conserve money when working on its buildings. Anderson said, “The things we do in these facilities, we want to do smartly and spend public money wisely.”

To do this, the district is addressing how much energy the electrical systems use. They use high efficiency motors, modern lighting, and cut back on air conditioning and heating when no one is in a school building. By becoming more efficient, they have created $2 million of cost avoidance on the buildings.

Anderson pointed out that they stopped using unnecessary lights outside of his office to save power. He said, “Will one bulb make a difference? No. But if it’s 1,000 bulbs, that’s a huge difference.” By making small changes throughout many of its buildings, the school hopes to affect its energy use while making improvements on its facilities.