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School History

Student playing the recorder

Golden Lake was originally built in 1970 as an open school and transformed over the years as detailed below: 

1965 The District 12 school board authorized the administration to purchase 14.3 acres of land south of Golden Lake ($1,500 per acre).
1970 An open school was built ~ IGE (Individually Guided Education). Pilot School Indian artifacts were discovered during the building process.
1971-72 First year for students; Richard (Buzz) Larson was principal.
1988 Remodeled media center and added the reading corners and carpet. Added four portable classrooms and two bathrooms.
1989 Classroom partitions (walls) on upper level began.
1991 Lower level classroom partitions/walls built creating 11 classrooms; re-roofed.
1995 Duct air supply updated throughout the building.
1996 Added new lockers and case work (wall partitions for upper level classrooms.) New playground addition/updated original playground equipment.
1997 Installed new phone system, cabling, email setup and technology head end room. Remodeled front office area and replaced cedar fascia with metal.
2000 Fire/Safety Remodel: Sprinkler system, exit signs and emergency lighting and upgraded boiler burners.
2003 New lights and drop ceiling installed throughout the building, replaced main air handling unit, installed new air conditioning system, installed partial emergency management system. Removal of portable classrooms and resurfaced black top area.
2004
Tuck pointed eastside of the building and replaced window/frames in the cafeteria.
2007
Replaced all windows and several doors. Installed door between the two kindergarten classrooms.
2008 Replaced flooring in the kindergarten rooms - half carpet/half tile. Installed sidewalk on School Road for student drop off.
2009 Replaced carpet in upstairs rooms.
2010 Replaced carpet in lower level rooms. Refurbished office entrance and main entrance lighting. Library remodel, replaced carpet, computers, clerk's desk, and reorganized book shelving.

 

Golden Lake Memories

I attended Golden Lake Elementary School in its first two years of operation. I have a vivid recollection of how that piece of land looked before it was built upon (Golden Lake School). It really was a rolling and idyllic landscape--a meadow with an old farm trail snaking through it that eventually ended in a turnaround at the peninsula jutting into Rice Creek, behind the school. That unpaved trail was even a kind of "Lovers Lane" in the 1960s. I remember feeling sadness when one day in August 1970, an army of earth movers descended on the land, and began tearing it apart. The amazing thing was that they completed the whole complex inside of one year! When my family moved to the area in 1965, it was a neighborhood of just four homes on what was then called "the bay" of Golden Lake: #83 (my family), #87 (built by Orville Gran, then the Director of Business Affairs for District 12, #93 the Strands, #97 home of Marcy Roach and family. Marcy Roach was a longtime District 12 school nurse, and retired from the district sometime in the mid-90s I think. Her husband Jim was a builder who owned and developed many lots around Golden Lake throughout the 50s and into the early 60s. So it was not yet suburban around there--we had the place all to ourselves for a number of years. It really was a lovely spot.

Steven Bloomfiled, Golden Lake Elementary, Class of 1973