In a show of support for Columbia Public Schools, 76 percent of voters approved the district’s request to sell $60 million in bonds to finance new construction, building improvements, air conditioning and technology.
The vote was 13,032 for the bond issue and 4,097, or 24 percent, against.
The next step for district administrators and the school board will be meetings with the DLR architecture firm of Kansas City, consultants, teachers, staff and the community to plan what two new schools will look like and where they will be located.
The referendum had to pass by a 57 percent majority, or four-sevenths of the people who voted Tuesday, according to state law.
Of the bond’s proceeds, about $40 million will go to building an elementary school and begin the first construction phase of a third major high school. The rest will go toward improvements such as roof repairs, new windows, air conditioning for five elementary schools and more technology in classrooms.
“We are excited and very thankful to this community,” said Lynn Barnett, assistant superintendent for student support services. “We’ll be very true to our plan and implement what voters approved.”
Passage of the bond issue means the school district will extend taxpayers’ obligation, or how many years their taxes will be used to pay for the projects, but tax rates will not increase.
Greg Croll, a Columbia physician, said he supported the measure because it doesn’t increase taxes and will be used to improve buildings.
“I think we definitely have a need for physical planned improvement in the schools, and, especially since we don’t really have to pay anything, it was kind of a no-brainer to me,” he said.
Columbia voters have never rejected a no-tax-increase bond issue, district officials said. Barnett called this bond issue “the biggest ever” and attributed the request for $60 million in bonds to the district’s growth over the past decade. The district has grown steadily since the mid-1980s, and a recent educational adequacy study showed one-third of the schools are overcrowded, and 22 percent of students attend classes in the district’s 154 trailers.
Boone County added more than 10,000 residents between 2000 and 2006, according to estimates released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau. The growth rate of 7.8 percent placed it in the upper tier of fast-growing counties in Missouri.
Tom Prater, a teacher, said the city’s growth necessitates the new construction.
“I think this was very important,” said Prater, 53. “The community is growing so fast, and we need to keep up.”
District officials expect the construction of a third big high school to reduce the number of transitions Columbia’s 17,237 public school students make, allowing sixth- through eighth-graders to attend school together and ninth-graders to attend high school.
Luke Neal, 25 and an area director for Young Life ministry, said he supported the bond issue because “having grades nine through 12 together is a better situation (than) having 10 through 12 together.”
About $22 million of the $40 million allocated for school construction would go toward the first phase of the new high school, including a cafeteria, commons area, media center and classrooms for about 600 students.
The second and third construction phases — part of future bond issues — would include additional classroom space to make the high school ready for as many as 1,600 to 1,800 students, Barnett said.
The district decided to build the school in three parts to provide greater accountability and make sure projects come in on time and on budget.
Another $18.8 million of the newly approved bond issue’s proceeds will fund the construction of an elementary school. Barnett said it will likely resemble Paxton Keeley Elementary School in size, which was built in 2001 and holds about 700 students.
Barnett said planning the new high school could take as long as a year; the district will look at new elementary schools like Paxton Keeley to see “what was especially advantageous to learning at that school, and what parts of that we want to look into with our architects.”
As for the site of either new school, the district has been given 40 acres near New Haven Avenue and Range Line Street and recently bought another adjacent 40 acres for $500,000. The district is waiting on survey and soil test results before any decision on land use is made.
“Everything will be in the planning stages because we still have to go sell the bonds to get the funds and begin the legal process,” Barnett said.
Missourian staff contributed to this report.