SPARTA — Highland school administrators are celebrating and commending the voters in the district for caring for kids.
On Tuesday, residents in the Highland school district voted in a special election to decide whether to take advantage of an offer by the Ohio School Facilities Commission to match every local dollar with three state dollars to improve the educational facilities in the district. According to the unofficial results from the Morrow County Board of elections, 1,022 ballots, 54.16 percent, were cast in favor of the bond issue; there were 865 votes, 45.84 percent, against. In Delaware County, 24 individuals voted for the levy and 36 voted against it.
Highland Board of Education president Bill Short said he and most of the other board members are thankful, excited and looking forward to the new challenge.
“We want to thank everybody who worked so hard,” he said. “We want to thank everybody who maintained their support. We want to thank the citizens and members of the Highland community for the trust they put in us and the belief they had in us. We’re excited about going forward with this new endeavor.”
The new endeavor to which Short referred is the newly approved building project. The money raised by the 4.4-mill bond levy will be used to renovate the existing high school into a middle school, to renovate the middle school/Central Elementary complex and to build a new high school. The construction costs include furnishings and other equipment, improvements to school technology and necessary site work. The Ohio School Facilities Commission will pay for 75 percent of the cost of the project, about $35 million.
“I’m tickled to death,” said Superintendent Tim Hilborn. “I’m very thankful for the people of Highland and I’m very thankful for the Ohio School Facilities Commission. This is a great opportunity for our school. Now the community has a chance to come together and work on building our future and bring our schools into the 21st century.
“Tonight’s the night for celebration and tomorrow we go to work,” he added.
He said there will be about a year of planning and designing before construction can begin; that process will begin this morning with some conference calls. Also, the district’s architect will be at the Aug. 14 board meeting, Hilborn said, to “take us through a road map of what our next steps are going to be.”
