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Brighton School District is one of the fastest growing school
districts in the state. The district has grown by nearly 70%
since the 2001-2002 school year. According to one demographic
analysis, the district expects to receive an additional 1000-1200
new students each year for the next several years and will
need to add one new elementary school each year, a new middle
school every three years and a new high school every five
years until 2030.
Currently, the district’s middle schools are at 178%
capacity, and so the district will have to move some 7th and
8th grade classes to the high school. As a result of all this
growth, the district has placed a bond question for school
capital construction on the ballot in 2003, 2004, 2005 and
plans to ask its voters again this November 2006. Voters are
understandably fatigued by the constant barrage of tax increase
proposals; however, the affects on the astronomical growth
are even harder on the district’s students. The district
currently uses 24 portable classroom buildings to house nearly
1000 children (including 67% of all the preschool students
in the district). They have converted everything from closets
to teacher preparation areas to portions of cafeterias and
libraries into classroom space. In order to alleviate pressure
on the schools, the district has had to:
• Send their high school students to school in shifts;
• Move 7th and 8th grade students to high school classrooms.
• Refuse some of the state paid funding for preschool
since it does not have the building space to accommodate additional
preschool students; and
• Bus children in the western portion of the district
as much as an hour each way to the nearest school.
All these student-growth related capital needs are in addition
to building repair and renewal requirements in the district’s
existing schools for old boilers and failing roofs. The situation
will certainly turn from desperate to critical if the district’s
voters fail to pass the bond measure this year—or any
of the many anticipated measures that the district will be
forced to pursue in the coming years. The politically charged
bond election setting has forced the district to locate new
school building in politically advantageous areas and to calculate
the total amount funded through these bonds not by the district’s
total capital needs but by the district voters’ tax
tolerance.
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