Wayzata Public Schools officials outlined details of a proposed facilities referendum during a March 4 community information session at the district’s Creekside building in Plymouth. The proposal, which voters will decide April 14, could invest nearly half a billion dollars in new school construction, facility improvements, and a new swimming pool across the district.
Wayzata Public Schools serves one of the fastest-growing areas in the Twin Cities metro. The district currently enrolls roughly 13,000 students across eight elementary schools, three middle schools and Wayzata High School. District leaders say continued residential development and family turnover in western Hennepin County have steadily added students in recent years, putting pressure on classroom space and shared learning areas in several buildings.
According to the district’s FY 2024–25 audited financial statements, Wayzata Public Schools currently reports approximately $411 million in land and building assets. Because school district property is tax-exempt, those facilities do not carry the same taxable market value assigned to residential or commercial properties. The $411 million figure also reflects accounting depreciation of existing buildings rather than their full replacement cost. If approved, the proposed referendum — which approaches $500 million in new construction and improvements — would represent a major expansion of the district’s physical infrastructure relative to the depreciated value currently reported on its balance sheet.
Superintendent Dr. Chace Anderson led the presentation and answered questions from residents during the two-hour session. Attendance appeared modest, with roughly 20 community members present for the meeting.
The Referendum Overview
Voters in the Wayzata Public Schools district will be asked to decide three separate questions on the April 14 ballot, each addressing different aspects of district funding and facilities.
Question 1 asks voters to renew the district’s existing technology levy. District officials said this renewal would maintain current funding levels for technology, safety, and security systems without increasing property taxes and is worth about $15 per month on a typical $650,000 home or $1,800 over 10 years.
Question 2 is the largest portion of the proposal and focuses on facilities and capacity needs. The request would fund construction of a new elementary school and a new middle school, an expansion at Wayzata High School designed to accommodate additional students and support career and technical education programs, and a range of improvements to existing school buildings across the district. The district estimates the facilities request would add about $29 per month in property taxes for a typical $650,000 home or $8,700 over 25 years.
Question 3 asks voters to approve construction of a new eight-lane swimming pool at Wayzata High School. This question is contingent on approval of Question 2. If approved, the district estimates the pool would add about $4 per month to the property taxes of a typical home or $1,200 over 25 years.
Taken together, the proposed investments represent nearly $500 million in construction and improvements across the district’s facilities, making it one of the larger school referendum proposals in Minnesota in recent years.
District’s Case for the Referendum
In his presentation, Superintendent Dr. Chace Anderson said the district’s referendum request is rooted in continued resident enrollment growth and the need to add space before schools become overcrowded. Wayzata Public Schools currently serves about 13,000 K-12 students, and Anderson said capacity pressures are expected to intensify quickly. “By the 27-28 school year we’re anticipating that the elementary, middle school and high school will be beyond that capacity to accommodate the number of students that we’ll have, so it’s only two years out,” he said.
Anderson argued that the district cannot wait until buildings are already over capacity to act. He said planning, design, construction, and attendance boundary changes take years, making advance action necessary. He also pointed to the district’s earlier efforts to expand existing buildings before proposing new construction, including additions at several elementary schools and the opening of Meadow Ridge Elementary in 2016 and North Woods Elementary in 2019.
A second major point in Anderson’s remarks was that the district’s planning is tied to resident growth, not open enrollment. “We have been building to accommodate our resident students,” he said, pushing back on the idea that the district is proposing new facilities to serve students from outside district boundaries.
Anderson also emphasized the district’s financial position, noting that Wayzata is one of only a few school districts in Minnesota with a AAA bond rating. He said that rating reflects financial stability and allows the district to borrow at lower interest rates, helping reduce long-term costs for both residential and commercial taxpayers.
Beyond capacity, Anderson said the referendum is intended to support broader educational goals across the district. Those include creating additional career and technical education space at the high school, updating classrooms and shared learning areas, improving safety and security systems, and renewing the district’s technology levy so devices, software, internet access, and technical support can continue without a tax increase under Question 1.
Audience Questions Focus on Cost, Growth, and Communication
Communication and Enrollment Questions
One attendee, who said her children had been educated in Wayzata Public Schools, opened her remarks by noting that she believed the district had served families well but raised several concerns about the referendum process. “My kids were well served in this district,” she said.
She questioned whether the referendum had been widely communicated across the district, saying she had only recently learned about the proposal after receiving a mailed flyer. “I very much disagree that it was well communicated,” she said. She also raised questions about the district’s community survey, asking what percentage of households were represented by the approximately 400 responses referenced in the presentation.
The attendee further questioned the district’s enrollment projections, noting that while the district expects continued growth, some projections suggest enrollment could begin leveling off within the next decade. She also expressed skepticism about relying on outside consultants involved in construction planning, arguing that firms connected to building projects may have financial incentives that favor expansion.
Cost, Growth and Long-Term Planning
Former Wayzata School Board member Greg Baufield raised a series of questions focused on the scale of the proposal, long-term financial obligations, and infrastructure concerns.
Baufield noted that the combined ballot questions would represent one of the largest school bonding requests in Minnesota history and asked district leaders to consider the cumulative impact of rising taxes, insurance costs, and other household expenses facing residents.
He also questioned the timing of the April referendum and whether the district had coordinated with local governments, noting that property taxes are influenced by decisions made by school districts, cities, and counties simultaneously.
Baufield also raised a practical concern about the proposed Medina-area site: transportation safety. He noted that Highway 55 serves as the primary corridor in the area and runs alongside a railroad line, creating a potentially difficult traffic pattern for school transportation. Baufield warned that buses approaching the crossings would need sufficient room to come to a complete stop and queue safely, saying, “The challenge is of course is that 55 is a state highway,” and later adding that “there’s not enough space to prepare or stop across the tracks safely” if multiple buses are arriving at once.
In follow-up responses, district officials said a traffic study had been conducted in collaboration with the City of Medina, Hennepin County and the State of Minnesota. Potential solutions include extended turn lanes on Highway 55 and enhanced railroad crossing safety measures.
Baufield also questioned the proposal to build a new eight-lane swimming pool at Wayzata High School, expressing concern about the long-term operational costs of maintaining athletic facilities and warning that those expenses can place financial pressure on future school boards.
More broadly, Baufield said he was concerned about relying too heavily on long-range enrollment projections, noting that other districts have experienced declining enrollment after expanding facilities.
Other Questions About Cost, Scope and Long-Term Planning
Another attendee said the overall proposal felt too large for many residents to absorb, repeatedly returning to the fact that the combined package approaches half a billion dollars. She questioned whether the district had done enough to separate essential educational needs from what she viewed as lower-priority improvements, suggesting the facilities request could have been broken into smaller pieces so voters could weigh them individually. She also voiced concern about rising property taxes and broader household financial pressures, and wondered whether the district had fully explored ways to make better use of existing space before asking voters to fund so much new construction.
That same speaker also raised broader skepticism about long-term spending commitments, including the ongoing cost of maintaining new facilities such as a swimming pool, and questioned whether future policy shifts — including school-choice trends — could affect enrollment assumptions over time.
Later in the meeting, additional questions focused on providing clearer context for taxpayers. One question asked district officials to explain what the estimated monthly tax impact would represent as a percentage increase for a typical homeowner, rather than only presenting the change as a dollar amount. Another question asked how the value of the proposed improvements compares to the district’s existing land and buildings, noting that such context could help residents better understand the overall scale of the investment.
Overall, beyond the more detailed questions raised earlier in the meeting, the remaining comments reflected a common theme: residents wanted clearer financial context, more distinction between core needs and optional projects, and greater confidence that the size of the referendum matches the district’s long-term needs.
Superintendent Responds to Questions
In responding to questions from residents, Superintendent Dr. Chace Anderson emphasized that the district’s facilities planning is based primarily on continued growth in the number of resident students.
Anderson said Wayzata Public Schools has historically exceeded enrollment projections, noting that past forecasts have often underestimated how quickly new housing and family turnover bring additional students into the district.
He pointed to the district’s two newest elementary schools as examples. Meadow Ridge Elementary, which opened in 2016, and North Woods Elementary, which opened in 2019, both filled quickly after opening. Anderson said the district now has roughly 800 students in each of those schools, adding that without those facilities the district would have struggled to accommodate the additional enrollment.
Anderson said the district is trying to avoid waiting until schools are already overcrowded before beginning construction. Planning, design, and construction can take several years, he noted, meaning decisions must be made well in advance of when additional classroom space is needed.
He also stressed that the referendum process is the primary mechanism available to public school districts in Minnesota to fund new construction and major facility improvements. District leaders, he said, are responsible for planning ahead to ensure adequate space for students as the community continues to grow.
Follow up Questions
In follow-up questions after the meeting, Wayzata.com asked district officials how confident they are that residents across the district fully understand the scope of the referendum and its potential tax impact.
District leaders said it is difficult to measure whether the community “fully understands” a proposal of this scale, but noted that the district has attempted to provide information through multiple channels. Officials said the district has mailed referendum information to every household in the district, posted detailed materials online, and conducted presentations at schools and community meetings in the months leading up to the April vote.
In follow-up information provided after the meeting, district officials said the projected school district property tax on a $650,000 home would be about $2,826 annually in 2026. If both the facilities referendum and swimming pool question are approved, the district estimates the tax impact would increase by about $33 per month, or $396 per year for that same home.
In contrast, many homeowners across western Hennepin County have experienced double-digit increases in total property tax bills in multiple recent years, driven by rising assessed values and levies from multiple taxing jurisdictions, including cities, counties, and special districts. District officials said they are not able to calculate a comprehensive “all-in” tax bill for residents because the Wayzata school district spans multiple cities and overlapping taxing authorities, resulting in at least 20 different combinations of total property tax rates.
When asked whether existing buildings such as Armstrong High School could potentially be purchased or leased to add capacity, district officials said they were not aware that the building is available and noted that most enrollment growth is occurring on the western side of the district, particularly in Medina and Corcoran.
Conclusion
Despite the scale of the proposal, attendance at the information session appeared modest, with roughly 20 community members present for the two-hour meeting at the district’s Creekside facility in Plymouth.
The proposal now moves to voters across the Wayzata Public Schools district, who will decide the outcome when the referendum appears on the ballot in a special election scheduled for April 14.
How to Vote
Residents of the Wayzata Public Schools district will vote on the referendum in a special election on April 14, 2026.
Vote early by mail: Voters may request an absentee ballot to vote by mail. Applications and additional information are available at mnvotes.org.
Vote early in person: Early in-person voting is available at the Wayzata Public Schools District Service Center
13305 12th Avenue N, Plymouth, MN 55441
- Feb. 27 – April 13: Monday–Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, April 11: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Vote on Election Day: Tuesday, April 14, 2026, Polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Voters can find their assigned polling location at pollfinder.sos.mn.gov.
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