Subterranean schoolhouse blues

At Central Public elementary school in Norwood Young America, school is already out for the summer. And as early as next week, the school itself will be outed, too.

Workers will start removing thousands of cubic yards of dirt that cover the roof and are bermed around the building's sides. It's believed to be last earth-sheltered school in Minnesota.

Come next fall, the school's 430 students will see something different -- windows, 44 in all, letting in natural light from the outside that was absent from classrooms since the school was built in 1982.

And this winter when the snow falls? No more sliding off the school's roof.

The nearly $2 million unearthing is expected to kill a growing mold problem and add a new roof to the school district's one and only elementary school, located near the junction of Hwys. 5 and 212 in Carver County. "We're hoping that after we do this, it will be a central focus for people to rally around," said Andrew Wilkins, principal of Central Elementary. "You can see it from the highway as opposed to wondering what the heck it is."

When it first opened, Central Elementary was a source of pride for the young community. School and community leaders chose an earth-shelter design that was all the rage for energy conservation.

"That was the new thing," recalled Mary Wilson, a librarian who was working in the school district when Central Elementary opened to much fanfare. "Everybody just loved it. It was a beautiful building."

The school even won a building design award from the American Association of School Administrators.

"It was a pretty exciting time around here," said Pam Stoks, a fourth-grade teacher who was working in the district at the time and still teaches at Central Elementary.

But when the roof started to leak a few years ago, and concerns about mold surfaced, public love for the quirky building faded. Last December, voters passed a referendum to pay for school construction projects, including digging out the school.

"Changing the perception of the building was a big deal for us," Superintendent Brian Corlett said.

In addition to removing dirt off the roof and the sides of the building walls, the project includes reshaping the ground around it so water doesn't run into it, said Paul Youngquist, senior partner for the firm Architects Rego & Youngquist Inc. in St. Louis Park.

'Like a bomb shelter'

"Once we take the dirt off, it will look like a bomb shelter," Youngquist said. "It will look like a concrete warehouse. We'll be insulating the outside walls and putting on an exterior finish of brick." Then there are those 44 large windows.

"Every school needs to have daylight," Youngquist said. "It's very stimulating for the brain, but especially in an elementary where students are in one room for most of the day."

A few years ago, when Central School District officials were exploring the notion of digging out their K-5 school, they visited an earth-sheltered school in Hill City, Minn., built in the early 1980s. It has since been largely uncovered, leaving Central Elementary as the only remaining earth-sheltered school, said Bill Walsh, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Education.

The Central Elementary students have been hearing about the construction project for months, but Corlett said, "Some of them aren't quite sure what taking the dirt off means."

After all, they've become accustomed to going to school in a building with a grass-covered roof and classrooms without windows for so long. "Some of the kids' parents went here," Corlett said.

In the final days of school last week, many teachers took their classes onto the roof to take pictures and savor the view one last time.

'You can't look outside'

Andrew Heuer, 10, said he always thought it was "kinda cool" that his school was underground. But he can see advantages to the new look. "Sometimes it gets kind of boring because you can't look outside," he said.

Wilkins, the principal, said there isn't much he'll miss about the dungeon-like structure, but it did have one distinct advantage: The school was the perfect storm shelter.

For tornado drills, students were able to stay in their classrooms. It was a very orderly scene, Wilkins said, unlike the hectic drills in buildings where students are shepherded away from windows and into halls.

Said Corlett, "I want to believe that the learning environment -- just by having the natural light for students -- is going to be a better situation."

Students have a mix of sad and excited feelings about the changes, Stoks said. They have concerns about whether they'll be safe if a tornado comes. They're sad, too, for the disappearance of roof sledding.

Stoks is looking forward to coming back to a new school, even though her classroom is among the few that won't be getting windows.

"It's time to get it opened up so that the kids can see outside," she said. "To hear the birds singing, and to watch the first snowfall, that's a part of learning too."

Allie Shah • 612-673-4488