Results from a phone survey given last weekend indicate voters
support a proposed $3 million bond to remodel portions of Spring
Grove School
– construction that would finish the campus modernization
project the school district began last summer.
Hollister – Results from a phone survey given last weekend indicate voters support a proposed $3 million bond to remodel portions of Spring Grove School – construction that would finish the campus modernization project the school district began last summer.
“Results from the survey seem very positive,” said District Superintendent and Spring Grove Principal Howard Chase. “We’re raring to go.”
While students and staff alike have supported the bond proposal since Chase suggested it in the fall, the District needed a better idea of how the community would respond to such a measure, as taxpayers will ultimately be the ones financing the bond. If passed, the bond money would be used to build additional classrooms and a cafeteria for students.
North County School District, a rural district which serves 600 students, hired George K. Baum and Company to conduct a phone survey gauging support of such a measure. Residents were asked questions regarding their feelings about where the state of California is headed, where they believe the school district is headed, how they felt about school issues such as overcrowding and whether or not they would support a bond measure if an election were held immediately.
While specific numbers were not available at press time, Chase said the survey indicated that taxpayers feel positive about the proposal, and was encouraged to take the matter to the school board for a vote at its Feb. 15 meeting.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said North County School Board member Krystal Lomanto. “I absolutely support anything that will improve the school.”
The funding from the bond will go to upgrading Spring Grove classrooms, half of which already got a face-lift over the summer. The school’s athletic fields will be completely redone and a cafeteria will be built to offer students shelter at lunch during rainy weather. Currently, students eat lunch outside on picnic tables beneath an overhang which, though it provides some shelter in the rain as well as shade in the summer, is little help when students need to eat on wet benches.
“It will benefit everyone,” Chase said. “You feel better about going to work in the morning if your work environment is nice and new, and students feel the same way about going to school each day.”
If the resolution is passed by the school board, the District hopes to have a bond measure on the ballot for this June’s election. The school has yet to determine what the actual cost of the bond would amount to for individual taxpayers, or determine what interest rates or maturity date for the bond would apply. However, such information should be ready for the Feb. 15 meeting.
Chase will hold several townhall-type meetings at the school over the coming months to make sure parents and community members know exactly how their tax dollars will be used, he said.
“The best part is that if we’re able to build this new cafeteria, it will be available for everyone in the community to use,” he said. “Girl scouts, Boy scouts, 4-H – it will be a place for the community to come together and that’s what we want.”
If the bond is passed, construction on the new facilities would begin in the summer of 2007, Chase said.
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
