LEAD PHOTO: The YMCA Summer Day Camp participants toured the Southern Boone fire station on Henry Clay last Thursday.
LEAD STORY:
Remember that brand spankin’ new wing of kindergarten classrooms at Southern Boone Primary that opened last fall?
Nice addition to the building, right?
Well, it’s full. Noting that there are 155 kindergarten students already enrolled for the upcoming school year, which begins August 28, SoBoCo Superintendent Chris Felmlee and the SoBoCo Board of Education met at the end of July for their annual Board Retreat.
The growth of enrollment at the Primary and Elementary building had the board focusing the study session on future facilities, bonding capacity and meeting the needs of the growing district.
“Our bonding will change in December as our property valuation increases,” said board superintendent Felmlee. “We have an aggressive payoff schedule for paying down those bonds, plus our growth adds to our bonding capacity.”
Utilizing that growing bonding capacity is the key to keeping up with growth, said board president Barrett Glascock.
“We talked about our priorities and know that they will have to be an Early Childhood Center, which would house Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and Special Education,” Glascock said. “That facility would come ahead of the Middle School only because the larger number students coming in at the Primary School.”
Felmlee said such a facility, if approved by voters, would be built on property the district already owns west of the primary school.
“Early childhood is where we are seeing the most rapid growth,” Felmlee said. “This year’s kindergarten class is at 155 students and 160 is the cutoff point for having that ninth classroom. We don’t have a ninth classroom.”
~ Get all the details in today’s Journal ~
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