Bismarck Public Schools Are Busting At The Seems

Bismarck Public Schools Are Busting At The Seems!

What a year for high school seniors.  They've had to deal with a pandemic, loss of sports (and for most student athletes, their last opportunity to play on a sanctioned level), disruption of classes, activities with friends...lot's of senior memories that can never be made up.  Now that the Bismarck Public School District has gotten through unprecedented high school graduations, despite a bit of dancing around the weather on Sunday, they face another problem.  In this case, it's not a bad problem to have.

One of my measuring sticks for the health of a community has always been school enrollment numbers:  if the enrollment numbers are growing, the community is growing.  With growing enrollment, there needs to be good planning and that's exactly what Bismarck Public School Superintendent Jason Hornbacher and the school board have been doing...planning.

Monday, the school board received the results of their three-phase facility plan survey.  Included in the survey were plans to build two new elementary schools, which the district hopes to open in the fall of 2022.  I didn't hear the number of participants, but 87% of those who took the survey voted in favor of that plan.  After the presentation, the board decided to move forward with the plan.

Superintendent Hornbacher said it would cost around $24 million and will be funded with the existing BPS building fund, which means that the community will not have to pay any more taxes to build these facilities.  District leaders said they want to start the process in June.

Kudos to the Bismarck Public School District for including input from the public in the process and decisions which have a great impact on our community, property values and taxes.  Schools are necessary and add a great deal to our quality of life, but are expensive when not planned for.  Thank you for the planning, when Bismarck Public Schools Are Busting At The Seems!