Jul. 7—CASS LAKE — In partnership with the

Region Five Development Commission,

Cass Lake-Bena Schools

has taken a step toward greater energy efficiency after recently receiving an award through the Renew America's Schools grant program.

As one of 24 recipients across 22 states and being the only grantee in Minnesota, Cass Lake-Bena will share in approximately $178 million of funding, for which the district requested about $8.9 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.

With an application deadline in April, Cass Lake-Bena was among the applicants who submitted over 1,000 concept papers totaling nearly $5.5 billion in requests. This field was narrowed down to 236 candidates who were invited to submit full applications with requests totaling $1.62 billion.

According to a release, the Department of Energy more than doubled its intended funding from $80 million to $178 million given the high demand and overwhelming evidence of public need.

In the process of negotiating its final award amount, the district plans to make improvements including boiler replacements, HVAC system replacements, electrical switchboard replacements, envelope upgrades, LEDs, insulation for piping and replacement of emergency battery fixtures.

"This is going to allow us to do all kinds of things that will improve the energy efficiency of our buildings and make our buildings safer and healthier for our kids and our teachers," Superintendent Sue Chase said.

Making necessary upgrades would have otherwise been costly to the district, particularly the upgrade of its current elementary's boiler system which Chase noted is original to the building since its installment in 1968. The high school will also need to install new windows that have been part of the building since the 1990s.

"The sheer amount of this grant means a lot to our district," Chase said. "It's an investment that we wouldn't have been able to do all at once and it would have taken a lot of time to get all of this work done."

In the fall, the district passed a referendum

that will provide about $39 million for the construction of a new elementary school and a remodel of the current elementary for use as an early childhood and preschool site, alternative learning center and district service center.

Chase emphasized the separateness of the grant funding from the referendum and that the grant will go toward improvements to the current buildings.

"It's totally separate funding to accomplish a totally different thing," Chase said. "It's our existing buildings that this money will help modernize."