District 93 bond passes, what’s next?

Now that elections are over Bonneville school district is working to implement both bonds passed last night.

The district will build a new high school, football stadium and auditorium.

However, it won’t be ready for use until 2019.

“A lot of work being done, probably the most critical work,” said Superintendent Chuck Shackett.

The next step is designing the high school within the budget passed by voters.

The design process can take up to 14 months.

It then goes to the construction companies for bidding.

“Look and figure out exactly to the penny what it’s going to cost them to build this school based on those plans,” Shackett said.

This means construction won’t even begin until March 2017.

“We wish we didn’t have to do this,” said Shackett.

The district is looking for ways to accommodate students before the new school opens.

One solution is split sessions for the 2017-2018 school year.

“So at some point in the day we’ll have all 1,600 students there. Well, that’s not safe. So what we are hoping to do is to overlap the two groups coming in and try to get at least 300 students from each school Hillcrest and Bonneville to take online classes during that overlap. So it takes them out of the school but keeps them enrolled,” Shackett said.

If that’s what the district decides to do, it hopes the school day would go from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The district also plans on working with Idaho universities so students can take college courses for credit.

District administrators are also looking at switching to trimesters next year.

This would mean students would take 18 classes yearly instead of 16.