MIDLAND, Texas — School officials at Greenwood ISD are looking to pass a new school bond in order to continue and keep up with the student population growth, which has gone up at the district over the years.
The school bond consists of two propositions that would total up to $286 million.
Superintendent Ariel Elliot said he and others came up with the bond a while ago and are now looking to implement it.
“Proposition A as has the two new campuses and improvements to the high school and reconfiguring the elementary campus that we currently have," Elliot said. "Proposition B includes an event center that includes the auditorium and a gymnasium, then an indoor facility for our kids to use in co-curricular activities.”
The two new campuses would run along CR 120, just a few miles away from the main campus.
While the students would be able to move out of portable classrooms with the new buildings, it would also allow more kids to become students at the schools, especially with the expansion of youth classes.
“One of the main things is that it would allow us to offer pre-k to all the kids of that age in Greenwood," Elliot said. "So right now, we only do it for the ones who qualify because we don't have enough room to do all those kids, so we hope we're able to expand pre-k with this plan."
But what is one of the main concerns that parents have when their kids go to school?
Will their child be safe at school?
The two propositions promise to address those concerns.
“The first thing is safety, we want to make sure that everything is safe. So better vestibules, so it’s harder to get into the buildings," Elliot said. "We also wanna have hardened exits, which would include safety film on the glass, different kind of doors."
Renderings for the new designs have been completed and a new website is expected to be up in the coming days explaining more on the bond. But school officials are ready to move if it is approved.
“It would start immediately," Elliot said. "We would start to survey land and doing things like that as soon as we could...we're ready to move forward."
The bond will be on the Nov. 7 ballot for voters to vote on.