Liberty School Bond Ballots Mailed; $6.3 Million Sought

For the eighth time in four years, Liberty School District officials are hoping voters will approve a $6.3 million school bond issue.

“The last attempt in September fell 11 votes short of approval,” said Heather Greene-Beloit, head of the bond promotion committee.

The bond needs a 60 percent majority to pass. Passage would alleviate overcrowding at the elementary, junior high and high school levels and provide for the predicted doubling of student enrollment from about 665 students now to nearly 1,200 by the year 2015.

The estimated tax rate is $3.53 per $1,000 of assessed property value, Greene-Beloit said.

Residents should receive their ballots in the mail today.

Passage of the bond would allow for the construction of a separate junior high. Currently, the elementary and junior high schools, with a total of 470 students, are crowded into one building.

Windowless storage rooms and janitors’ closets in the building have been turned into special education and science classrooms to alleviate overcrowding and open up additional space.

In addition to new construction, the bond would pay for 14 new or remodeled classrooms at all grade levels, installation of a fire safety sprinkler system in the high school and building revisions that would make the school handicapped accessible, said principal Tom Ashenbrenner.

Liberty High School’s library would move to the school’s music room from its location in a tiny portable. And the music room would move to a larger room. The current music room has a problem: Too many musicians and their instruments in too small a room generate unacceptable decibel levels, Ashenbrenner said.

Lori Johnson, principal of Liberty’s elementary and junior high schools, said that when fights break out in the junior high, it’s more often than not because “somebody thought someone was deliberately jostling them in the halls.”

“Our halls are really, really tiny,” said sophomore Cheryl Ottosen. “The changes won’t help me because I’ll be graduated, but it will make it easier for other people who are so scrunched into the rooms.”

Greene-Beloit urged voters to participate in the mail-in election.

“We have a fairly small voting population - less than 2,500 voters,” she said. “We just want people to fill in their ballots and vote.”

In last September’s election, about 1,000 voters turned in their ballots. The deadline for returning ballots is May 20.

, DataTimes