The Fremont STEM Academy is outgrowing its classrooms.

Currently teachers commandeer the art and music classroom as needed. More enrollments are expected in the future so the charter school board purchased two yurts for $140,000.

A yurt is a round tent most associated with the nomads of central Asia, particularly Mongolia. These portable tents have been in use for thousands of years and that is a key workaround that the school board used to make their yurt-buying decision: they are portable.

The grant funding for the charter school has many strings attached and one of them is that money cannot be used for permanent structures and that nixes any notions of building additional classrooms onto Fremont Elementary School.

Another option is using modular classrooms. These can be delivered on a flatbed trailer and put into place with a forklift. They mostly resemble contractor offices seen at construction sites. They are also much more expensive than yurts.

The yurts are 800 square feet which is about the size of a normal classroom. They would be used for more bookish lessons than the hands-on learning the school is known for. The tools, machines, computers and various projects would stay inside the school and students would head to the yurts for English, history and other subjects.

The yurts are sitting next to Fremont Elementary School and covered with tarps. They could have been erected months ago but the STEM school is waiting for state approval. They already have the green light on the local and county level. Since the yurts will be located on school grounds right behind the elementary school, the state must get involved.

“The state is holding us up because of the R-factor in the walls and the fire rating in the walls. As of now we’re waiting on the state. We’re going to come to a point if we can’t work something out with the state we’re going to have to go with a Plan B and determine what that is,” said Paul Krause, interim board president for the charter school.

He spoke at the Sept. 23 Weyauwega-Fremont school board meeting.

Krause mentioned that they could get the yurts approved for three-season use which is not ideal as the Wisconsin winter covers most of the school year. The intention is for the yurts to be heated in the cold months. They will sit atop a low patio-like deck with steps and an ADA ramp.

Although the yurt company has flame certification for the walls, Wisconsin doesn’t recognized that company’s flame certification.

“So our builder took it to another company for flame certification and as now the new flame certification for the walls have been submitted to the state but the state got back and said there needs to be a little more information,” said Chamomile Nusz, a consultant to the charter school.

The yurts are not returnable. Nusz contacted the state about utilizing the grant funds and they replied that if the school needed to they could sell the yurts and recoup whatever money they could get back and then use those funds for another option.

Fremont isn’t the only school that has yurts. There are other schools in Wisconsin that have them and they were able to erect yurts with state approval by setting up the yurts off school property, like at an environmental station. Currently, a school in Wausau is in a similar situation as Fremont and they are awaiting the state’s rubber stamp.

“Because it is a school facility we have to abide by any school code that exists. It’s brand new for the state and brand new for our builders. Nobody has done it yet. That’s the hurdles we’re encountering. It’s new, even though the state uses these in four seasons in multiple parks that are state-owned but it all comes down to there are very specific codes to the fire rating and the R-value for the walls with school buildings,” said Nusz.

“I think that when you’re doing something innovative and different, unfortunately these things just happen and hopefully it will work,” said board member Nancy Gorchals.

Nusz pointed out that the charter school got permission from the Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction to purchase the yurts and DPI is enthusiastic that schools are putting up yurts for classroom use. However, the Department of Safety and Professional Services has the final say about the yurts.