WATFORD CITY — School enrollment in North Dakota’s fastest-growing small town has increased by 19 percent since May.
Enrollment in the McKenzie County School District, based in Watford City, increased by 255 students since the end of the 2013-14 school year, Superintendent Steve Holen said Wednesday.
“We’re doing as best we can,” Holen said.
Continue reading “Watford City’s student count up by 19 percent”
Modular buildings have become a common tool in western North Dakota. Oilfield and construction projects often necessitate the need for temporary structures that can be erected, used and moved at a moment’s notice.
On the outside, the modular classroom buildings being attached to the west wing of Trinity High School have a similar feel. But looks can be deceiving. Inside, the eight classrooms feel like they could be in any actual school building. In some ways, they’re better.
“You’d think you’re in a school,” Dickinson Catholic Schools President Steve Glasser said Thursday while giving a tour of Trinity’s construction and cleanup progress.
“We want our students to feel at home. We really feel this is going to be very comfortable for our students and our teachers.”
Everywhere you look in southwest North Dakota these days, school districts are growing, talking about expansion or looking into building completely new facilities.
Dickinson’s leaders support building a new middle school less than a year after opening a new elementary school. South Heart and Belfield are weighing their options for new facilities separately, or even the possibility — however slim it may be — of a centralized school and a combined district. New England is almost finished with an expansion to school building, complete with a modern library.
Like many people in southwest North Dakota, I’m a Lutheran who is friends with a lot of Catholics.
For me, it goes back to high school when I met a handful of Trinity kids and found that, despite what us small-towners had heard, they weren’t the arrogant “big city” kids some thought they were. A few of those guys have become lifelong friends and, through them, I’ve met many other great friends and people along the way.
One of those guys woke me up Monday with a text message while I was laying in a hotel bed on vacation. He asked if I had heard about the fire at Trinity High School. He didn’t have many details but knew school was canceled. Wondering just how serious it was, we theorized it was something small — maybe an electrical fire — that could probably be dealt with. He had driven by and said the outside of the building looked OK.
So, I assigned the story to one of our reporters and got back to the last day of my vacation.
WATFORD CITY — There are days, Brent Sanford said, when he struggles to wrap his head around everything happening in his hometown.
Ten years ago, Sanford returned to Watford City to take over his family’s automotive dealership. He soon found himself on the city council and was elected mayor in 2010 — right as oil and gas exploration in the Bakken shale formation was beginning to put a stranglehold on northwest North Dakota communities.
Today, Sanford and other Watford City leaders are facing challenges few small towns in America ever have to endure. All the while, he said, they’re trying to keep their once-quiet community from becoming just another “dirty oil town.”
The goal, Sanford and other city leaders said, is to keep pace with growth that has gripped Watford City because of the unprecedented oil boom — it enters the construction season with $240 million in infrastructure needs, ranging from streets to schools — while maintaining its appeal as a progressive and welcoming home where people want to put down roots.
But that is more challenging than anyone could have ever imagined.
“Everything is in flux, basically,” Sanford said.
Dustin Monke 