93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
One of mid-Missouri’s fastest-growing school districts is considering placing a $12-million bond issue on the April 2024 ballot.
K-12 enrollment in the Southern Boone County R-1 school district has increased from 1,500 ten years ago to more than 2,000 today. Southern Boone Superintendent Dr. Tim Roth tells “Wake Up Mid-Missouri” that the proposed bond issue would provide improved and safer educational space for VoAg and Arts by connecting directly to the high school in Ashland.
“Currently our high school students have to walk across a parking lot and go to a different building for their ag (agricultural) education courses. And then we also have some high school art courses that are housed in the middle school. And so we would like to really bring them all under one roof,” Dr. Roth tells listeners.
Dr. Roth says the proposed bond issue would also replace the 30-year-old roof on the original high school building. The proposal is aimed at improvements at the Ashland high school.
“We are at approximately 525 students at the high school and over the next seven to ten years we think we’ll start seeing that enrollment at the high school move up to approximately 675 to 700 students,” Dr. Roth says.
He emphasizes that the 2024 bond issue would not raise the tax rate. Passage will require a four-sevenths majority. You can hear the full interview with Dr. Roth here.
