School bond vote coming to Fremont County
ST. ANTHONY, Idaho (KIFI) - The Fremont School District school board recently voted on proposing a new school bond to the county voters. The bond is for $59,980,000 and will help the district make new additions to school buildings in the area.
The additions will go to Ashton Elementary, North Fremont High School and the South Fremont High School. Those additions will be, "We knew loud and clear from lots of patrons, a need for new gym space, new auditorium," school board chair Jon Bailey said.
The main reason for the bond the school district states is for the district's Career Technical Education (CTE), to help their students learn the skills for the various trades and prepare them for that work.
"We recognize that a large, the largest majority of our students don't go on. They go find a job after high school. And so CTE became a real opportunity for us to make a difference in this community and help our children have higher paying wages out of high school," Bailey said.
Bailey added they want to secure the futures of the students in the district "this really focuses on need."
He says what the bond will do will benefit the entirety of the school district.
"It spreads out the the spend the capital spend is spent in all of the communities, not just on one. If we were to do a new junior high, it would be more than what we're going to spend here. And it wouldn't take care of all the other needs throughout the entire community of Fremont County."
The Vice Chair of the School board Tia Cherry, adds that currently the school district is trying to implement more CTE services, but needs more space.
"We're already trying to implement it with the space that we have, but this will really help expand that, especially you'll see if you go to our website, you can see where we're building it at north from high school, we're adding some and south we're doing a significant increase there."
She adds these changes will help the district reach the goal of securing the students future.
The funds will also help make room for more safety improvements, and upgrade the current mental health facilities in the school district. They feel that by doing so they can adjust to much of the projected growth the area will see.
"Getting ahead and also just fixing the things that we need to fix such as back in the Ashton Elementary. That's huge. And adding the correct bathroom facilities. So it's so much more than CTE. It's also about securing our schools and creating like at North where we want to connect the high school to our Ag shop so that kids are in and out of the building. And there's one secure vestibule that they can go through. And we know where they are and we know that they're secure and safe."
They also hope to adjust the roofing of South Fremont School to make entering the building much safer especially in winter, so that snow doesn't fall in front of where students walk to get into the building.
Bailey adds the bond will benefit all of the school district not just one part of it, and encourages the voters in the area to learn about the information for themselves.
"My hope is, is that we get patrons and those that have a vote to go and look at all of the information that we've been looking out for the last three and a half years. And if they'll do that, I believe they'll come to the same conclusion or they'll at least understand and be sympathetic to why we're choosing to move forward with the decision that we are recommending."
The vote for the bond will be held on March 14. As the school district finalizes the information, you will be able to find more information on the school bond and see the designs for the additions and improvements on the district website or your students school website.
