Less than two months after Center Grove Community Schools opened a new elementary school, it is laying the groundwork for its next one.
The plan comes as the school district experiences its greatest year-to-year enrollment growth ever.
Center Grove schools plans to borrow $8.2 million, which the school board approved Thursday. The money won’t be available until 2020, and the district anticipates spending most of the money before the end of 2021, Chief Financial Officer Paul Gabriel said.
About $2 million will go towards purchasing 25 to 40 acres for the next elementary school, but the properties being considered are not being announced. About $1 million will be used to buy more land near the high school, which the district has been doing for years. The rest of the bond money will be spent on traffic flow improvements at Maple Grove, maintenance, site improvement, technology and security upgrades across the district, according to school officials.
The district can’t wait to find and buy land for a new school, Gabriel said.
“The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to find a plot of underdeveloped land without a lot of houses where we’d want to put a school," Gabriel said. "I can’t tell you when we’d need the school but we will want to have the land available.”
The Center Grove area has seen a population boom in recent decades, as is evident in the increase in the number of students that attend school there. Between the 1998-99 and 2018-19 school year, the district grew 28.3 percent. Although the student count for this year isn’t official yet, the student body increased by 329 students this year to a total of 8,753, the greatest year-to-year increase in the history of Center Grove schools, according to school officials.
The student body has grown by an additional 12 students since the enrollment count on Sept. 13, Gabriel said.
Over the summer, hundreds of students were moved to new schools to balance enrollment when Walnut Grove Elementary School, Center Grove’s sixth elementary school and ninth school overall, opened in August. The increase of 341 students from count day in 2018 to Thursday represents more than half of the student body of Walnut Grove, which serves about 600 students.
Center Grove schools will spend money from the bonds as some of its current debt comes off the books, meaning the district won’t have to increase property taxes, which are about $1.02 for every $100 of assessed value. If voters in White River Township approve a referendum in November, they will pay an additional 11.5 cents for every $100 of assessed value, generating about $3.5 million per year over the course of eight years starting in 2020, according to school officials.
If the referendum passes, Center Grove schools will use the money to strengthen school security, including adding live monitoring and adding school safety officers, and improve mental health services, including hiring counselors and increasing support for students who have behavioral needs, according to school officials.
With the rest of the $8.2 million in bond money, Center Grove schools will spend $930,000 to purchase property just south of the high school and will spend $400,000 to improve the traffic pattern at Maple Grove Elementary School, according to school officials.
After a median was installed on Whiteland Road near Maple Grove in 2012, drivers experienced traffic backups during school pick-up and drop-off hours. Center Grove schools is paying Crossroad Engineers to look into not only adding a lane of road from Whiteland Road to the school on school property, but also adding staff parking at the district’s maintenance and transportation facility. Both projects would need approval from the Bargersville Town Council, said Bill Long, assistant superintendent of operations.
If the project are approved, Center Grove wants to have those project done sometime this fall. Center Grove administrators will likely present to Bargersville town government next month, Long said.
Center Grove schools will use $930,000 to purchase 15 homes directly south of Pennington Estates. The bond doesn’t expire, so the district can spend that money once homes become available. It will be up to future administrators to decide how to use that land, Gabriel said.
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Center Grove schools will borrow $8.2 million to fund the following:
Miscellaneous projects
Maple Grove traffic improvement: $400,000
Purchase land for next elementary school: $2 million
Purchase land around the high school campus: $930,000
Maintenance projects
Maintenance equipment: $75,000
Site development repairs: $75,000
Site development projects: $1,015,000
Security upgrades: $90,000
Building improvement district projects: $1.37 million
Technology projects
Network charges and upgrades: $139,030
Purchase software/licenses: $60,000
Maintenance/software contracts: $793,837
District-wide hardware purchases: $975,000
Security upgrades: $55,124
Other equipment purchases: $82,000
Bond financing charges (total for two bonds): $140,000
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