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School tries to ease the financial stress to voters by trying to secure $7.5 million that will go to build a 250-student preschool.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
BEAVERCREEK — School officials are looking to Washington, D.C. for a little help easing the financial request to voters for money to build and renovate schools.
The district asked State Rep. Chris Widener (R-Beavercreek) for help securing $7.5 million to build a 250-student preschool on land the district owns near the administration office.
Funding for the preschool was included in a $90-million bond request to pay for new and renovated buildings across the district.
Voters have twice turned down the requests, in November 2007 and March 2008, by narrow margins.
The district needs the new buildings, including a preschool, elementary and middle school, because of its rapidly growing student population.
The district is already 1,000 students over capacity and adds more than a pupil a day, according to Dennis Morrison, superintendent.
In a letter to Widener, Morrison cited the large number of students with disabilities enrolled at Beavercreek — many of whom are affiliated with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its "large children's hospital," he said.
Morrison and Widener, who wrote to Congressman Mike Turner (R-Centerville) about the request, both mentioned the Base Realignment and Closure legislation and recruitment as a reason for funding the new school.
"To support successful recruitment and acknowledge the benefit the schools make to the process the facilities must be modernized," Widener wrote to Turner. "And, there undoubtedly will be those who have children with special needs that are being recruited to our area."
Beavercreek school board members are confident enough in their legislators that they will likely omit the preschool from the third attempt to pass a bond request that will be on the ballot in November, said Peg Arnold, board president.
Contact the reporter at (937) 225-2342 or cmagan@DaytonDailyNews.com.
