Moorhead Area Public Schools begins look at facility capacity following survey shows potential increase in next 10 years

(Moorhead, Minn.) – With a study predicting enrollment potentially increasing by nearly 20 percent in the next 10 years, Moorhead Area Public School District officials are looking at the facilities and how they may need to adapt to plan for an increase.

A long-range facility planning group has been assembled to take a look at the next 10 years.

“We are in the process of looking at the demographic information,” MAPS Superintendent Dr. Lunak said. “We’re also in the process of doing a community-wide survey.”

Dr. Lunak says the data will be used to formulate some potential solutions to the potential marked increase.

“From there, we’ll continue to evaluate all those scenarios the committee comes up with,” he said. A list of potential recommendations could be presented to the school board as early as January.

While between the high school and career academy could absorb the additional 250 students, the challenge is going to become the population of the middle school.

“I think where we’re going to run into challenges is, what do we do with our middle school population,” Dr. Lunak said. “That building, even with the addition of Horizon West, is nearing capacity, and will exceed capacity based on what this demographic study yielded.”

The school board, sometime in early 2024, will decide the appropriate steps to move forward, Lunak said.