Bonneville School District thinking of fifteen-year plan

The Bonneville School Board held a work session on Wednesday to discuss a potential fifteen-year growth plan.

This past November a bond was passed to build a new High School within the Bonneville School District, but student population keeps growing very fast.

“One of the things we did is we developed a skeleton of a fifteen-year plan so that as our finance committee met, they have an idea over the next 15 years what other bonds we would need to ask our patrons for. We also looked at the facilities plan we need, and that’s what we presented today to the board. To say, here’s at least a framework we need to work with,” says D93 Assistant Superintendent Scott Woolstenhulme.

All ideas were simply suggestions as it is very early in the process of the plan.
Highlights were the possibility of building more than five new schools over the next 15 years.

Smaller schools in the district have about 400 students, so before building new schools, and to lower costs, the district may add classroom extensions.

“We built six new elementary schools in the last decade, and those have been great but the reality is that we still have growth in those neighborhoods. So now those schools are filling up- like Woodland Hills and Discovery Elementary and Summit Hills that we built a couple years ago, and we’re already having to put trailers at those schools,” said Woolstenhulme.

Tax increases are always a concern when new schools are built. However, the board projects this expansion shouldn’t cost the taxpayer very much.

The board will want community input, so nothing is set in stone. Once they have that information and more specific planning, the board will vote.