Yutan’s increasing population is causing the need for buildings to expand. Yutan plans to accomplish this by adding a new fifth- and sixth-grade building along with additions to the shop. 

Superintendent Mitch Hoffer explained Yutan’s two plans for expanding. 

“One is the old 65 building. It is going to hopefully turn into a fifth- and sixth-grade building. The second one is a potential shop project to the back of the school,” Hoffer said.

The first of these changes resulted from a business closing and is now going to help with the population growth in Yutan.

 “With the ending of the daycare lease, this gave us the perfect opportunity to address our growing population by expanding into this building with a sort of mini middle school in the next few years,”  school board president Molly Lloyd said. 

The fifth- and sixth-grade building will make the process of new students coming in more flexible for the elementary, along with offering more opportunities. 

“Superintendent Hoffer and his administrative team have done a great job proposing solutions with the 65 building, as well as a new addition to the shop that will offer great opportunities for our students,” Lloyd said. 

The new addition to the shop will house classes that will be part of a newly proposed career and technical education program, also known as CTE. 

“We recently acquired eight new welders as part of a grant; as we continue to pursue additional grant opportunities for CTE equipment, we will need a larger space for students to use them,” Hoffer said. 

Though the building may be pricey, the school does not plan to seek donations. Hoffer still hopes to utilize local knowledge, however. 

“We do not plan to ask for the donations from local businesses as the main funding source, but obviously, we have some local contractors, some local electricians, builders, things like that, we would want to tap into their knowledge base to try and come up with a good plan,” Hoffer said.

The district is aiming to have the fifth- and sixth-grade building done by next year, but it will more likely be the start of the 2023 school year. The potential addition to the shop would be finished about a year after the 65 building.