D-50 seeks OK for new school

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HARVARD – School District 50 has asked voters eight times since 2001 for either money to pay for a new school or for increases in the education rate, and eight times, the school district has been denied.

The last time a school referendum appeared on the ballot was in 2005, when the district asked for an education rate increase. One thousand fifty-three people voted “yes,” and 1,538 voted “no,” Superintendent Richard Crosby said. 

Crosby said the school district had considered several options for how to deal with growth, including moving every grade level into the shuttered Motorola plant on the north side of town. They nixed the plan because preparing the site would cost $100 million to $120 million. The district’s bonding capacity under state law is $38 million to $45 million.

“All our schools are bulging,” Crosby said. 

The superintendent thinks a referendum question on the Nov. 4 ballot is a proposition that voters can’t refuse – building a $20 million school that would house kindergarten through third grade and would free up room in all of the district’s buildings.

A 22-acre proposed school site – west of Marengo Road – was donated to the district by the Evelyn Hereley Trust. Hereley was a former schoolteacher.

Under the school district’s proposal, the owner of a $200,000 home in the district would pay about $92.50 more next year in real estate taxes.

Bonds would be issued to pay for school construction, officials said.

The bonds would be paid back with interest with a rate increase of 15 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation. The owner of a $200,000 home now pays about $2,637 a year to the school district, said Donna Joyce, business manager for District 50.

The new school would house students in kindergarten through third grade. Jefferson School would house fourth- and fifth-graders.

Central School could become the district’s administration offices, allowing the now-occupied offices in the high school to be converted into classroom space.

A group calling itself Citizens Caring for Kids cited reasons why a new school is needed:

• Kindergarten enrollment increased by 25 percent in the 2007-08 school year.

• In July 2008, three mobile classrooms were removed after 38 years because of life-safety issues. The removal reduces Washington School to seven classrooms for all early childhood education, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.

• Cafeterias and gyms in every building are too small.

• The last time a new school was built in Harvard was 1962.