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CANTON, Miss. (AP) — Madison County Superintendent Ronnie McGehee said the school system will likely ask voters to approve another bond issue within the next three years.
McGehee tells the Madison County Journal (http://bit.ly/1w1TTbH ) that by 2016, the need for another middle school, a separate 9th-grade building at Germantown High School or both will justify the cost.
Germantown High School, which opened in 2010, was initially built with the capacity of 1,200 students. Following this year's class — the first to spend all four years at the school — Germantown will welcome more than 900 students next year.
"You have to be able to predict your problems," McGehee said. "When you can do that, you can get out ahead of the problems, and that's what we've been able to do. We're not looking at next year; we're looking at the fourth and fifth-grade classes at Mannsdale (Elementary), which are huge."
He said an additional building to house the school's ninth-grade class could be an option.
McGehee came to the district in 1999, when there were seven schools serving 7,000 students. Now, there are 21 schools and more than 12,000 students.
In 2009, voters approved a $61 million school bond issue to build Germantown High School and expand several others. At the time, schools in the county were using 26 trailers to house 52 classrooms.
Mannsdale Elementary, which serves grades K-5, opened in 2009. Attendance will swell to 950 next year.
The district has a contract with Rock Hill, South Carolina-based McKibben Demographics, which specializes in helping school districts keep up with their future needs by tracking migration and population growth.
For Madison County, McKibben has forecast growth at about 2 percent, annually, over the next seven to eight years.
"If you look at our history," McGehee said. "We've pushed a bond issue every four-to-five years to keep up with the growth."
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Information from: Madison County Journal, http://www.onlinemadison.com
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