Crookston Public Schools Superintendent Jeremy Olson will be on Focus on Education Saturday morning, giving a mid-year update on a variety of topics including the plans for the new bus garage, the world’s best workforce, and the district’s strategic planning. Recently the school district also shared thoughts about what they would like to do with the current bus garage location with the City of Crookston, which Olson also discussed.
Olson said the district wants to be good neighbors and leave the current garage in a way that they are good neighbors with the City of Crookston and community. “One of the values we hold is we want to be good neighbors,” said Olson. “And as we exit the current bus garage location, we want to leave it in good hands and make sure it fits the needs of the Crookston community. Right now, we’re exploring the costs of tearing down the post-frame construction building, which is the oldest portion of the bus garage. There is a brick building just to the south there and looking at transferring ownership to a responsible owner. We’ve been working a little with the city on trying to understand what the needs are for Crookston and how we can best leave that site in good hands and best use for the strategic direction of Crookston.”
Under the plan recently proposed by Olson, the district would keep the third building, a steel-frame structure, along with its fuel tanks. “There is a white, steel-frame building that currently has our fuel pumps on site,” said Olson. “That would be retained by the district under the plan I proposed in the last School Board meeting. What we’re doing is looking at all those different options, trying to gather more information. Each of those items will be brought back to the School Board for a final decision.”
The district will want to maintain the current fuel tanks, which are currently nearing the end of their lives until they determine how they’d like to proceed with fueling busses in the future. Olson explained that fuel tanks were not part of the bus garage referendum because the committee didn’t reach a consensus on how the district fueling should happen moving forward. “That was a topic that did not have a consensus by our bus garage committee,” said Olson. “There are some people that feel we should be exploring the option of filling up fuel downtown. Maybe splitting our bus fleet up and fueling at existing businesses. There was another portion of people that feel we need to build new fuel tanks on-site near our new bus garage. So, based on not having consensus, we made the decision not to put that into the referendum because it was not a recommendation that could be brought forward by the committee.”
Once the walls of the current fuel tanks become too thin to use, the district will need a plan for fueling. “There is code compliance so that once the walls of the tank get too thin, we’re going to have to stop using that tank,” said Olson. “So, in the meantime, we’re going to be looking at the school board to make a decision of do we self-fund fuel tanks at the bus garage site or do we go downtown. That is a decision that hasn’t been made at this point.”
For more on the bus garage and other mid-school year updates from Superintendent Jeremy Olson, listen to Focus on Education Saturday at 8:35 a.m. on KROX.
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