Letter to the editor: Elementary Teacher's "Point of View"

Letter To the Editor:
A former Kasson- Mantorville  Elementary Teacher’s “Point of View”

Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:

My life career was being an elementary school teacher for 40 years, spending the last 25 years at the Kasson- Mantorville Elementary School located in Kasson located in Kasson.

The main philosophy of being a teacher to me was to help all of the students in my classroom to become proficient in whatever they learned so they could do whatever they chose to do with their lives.
The elementary school is like the students ‘second home’ the first being with their parents.
During my career at Kasson-Mantorville Elementary I sometimes had as many as four children from the same family in different years. Near the end of my teaching career, I began to teach children of previous students I had taught here. ‘Kids of kids’ so to speak.

There was a time in the 1960s when my students and I knew every ‘nook and cranny’ in that Kasson- Mantorville Elementary School because of what was going on in the world, we needed to go for drills to the lower level furnace room for safety’s sake. Therefore we found out about the inner bowels of the school-namely- the furnace room. This gave us an idea of how well constructed that school was.
The Kasson- Mantorville Elementary School was put on the National Historical Register in December 2007.

The watertower on the northwest corner of the school grounds was saved and is listed on the National Historical Register because interested citizens worked with getting Minnesota Historical Society (grants) plus other methods to help with incurred debts.

The historic Kasson School could also apply for federal and state grants, federal and state tax credits and interest investors to help with the rehabilitation of the historic school.
Construction of a new building on this site would not be eligible for grants and funds available to rehabilitation of a historic structure.

Recently the Library Building Committee presented to the Kasson City Council three options for a new library. Option one was to reuse the entire old school. Option two was to reuse the building but remove the second floor. Option three was to demolish the historic school. It should be noted: in the John Lauber reuse study report in 2009 there was an option to reuse part of the historic school for a new library and community center.

An important question I would like to ask: How can so few people-namely- the Kasson City Council, Kasson Library Board, and the Kasson Building Committee feel comfortable wishing to demolish the historic Kasson Elementary School which is seven years away from being 100 years old and used for 87 years, besides being listed on the National Historical Register since 2007. Some families in this community of Kasson go back generations even before or at the time the school was built in 1918.
I feel that the entire Kasson community should play a part in such a tremendous decision as the demolition of the school instead of being decided by so few.

That historic Kasson School has once been the heart of Kasson and once demolished there will be no going back to a building that has been very dear to the community.

                Blanche Neseth