NORTH SIOUX CITY -- Bids will be opened Thursday for the new science wing for the Dakota Valley Middle School. Construction is to begin within 30 days, according to Superintendent Al Leber.

The new facility, made possible by a gift from Mark and Mary Ellen Nylen, of Jefferson, S.D., will add four 1,400-square-foot, state-of-the-art science classrooms to the middle school building.

To set off the addition, the school district will pay to install extensive landscaping, a sidewalk and retaining wall around the outside of the new science wing. And, it will relocate the principal's office and the middle school's main entrance from the north to the south end of the building, Leber said.

That construction is scheduled to be completed in December.

The school district is already in the midst of a $3.4 million construction package that will add four new classrooms to the elementary school, five new classrooms to the high school -- one art, one science, one band plus five new practice rooms, two regular classrooms, double the size of the locker rooms and athletic training area, plus remodel four rest-rooms and add new front doors to the middle school.

A double-size high school classroom is also being divided into two and the former weight room is being remodeled as a school board and community meeting room.

Those projects are set to be completed in July.