Proposed school bond is Clover District’s plan for dealing with growth in that area

Growth and the potential for overcrowded schools in the Clover District are key factors in the proposed bond that voters must decide next month.

According to Quinn, the bond is for $156 million that would pay for a new high school and its athletic fields. Payments would be spread over a 20-year period and, should the bond pass, would raise property taxes for people in Clover by $8.66 per month per $100,000 of assessed home value.

Voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 ballot. For more details on the bond, visit www.clover.k12.sc.us/csdbond.

District officials say the bond is a simplified version of the previous one that failed last year.

“In the first bond referendum, we had a lot of moving parts,” Clover School District superintendent Sheila Quinn said at an event earlier this month at Clover High School in support of the proposed bond. “A lot of different buildings that were included in the bond package. This is a very simple bond referendum. It is simply for a high school, and it’s really for the shell of a high school because (the District will be) contributing the funds for the furniture, the fixtures and the equipment.”

District officials say the proposal for the new high school, which would be completed in time for the 2026-27 school year, would alleviate overcrowding that occurs at Oakridge Middle School and Clover High School.

The proposed high school would be on a parcel of district-owned land on Daimler Boulevard.

The new high school would be about 400,000 square feet and have a capacity of 2,100 students. It also would allow the district to convert Clover High School’s ninth grade campus into a middle school, relieving some of the pressure at Oakridge.

“We plan for Clover High School, within three years, to be about 3,100-3,200 (students),” Quinn said. “We know that it’s going to be because in the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, we already have almost 3,000 students, and that those students will be here in three years. So when we get to that place, we think Clover high school will split to two 1,500, 1,600-sized high schools, which is a 4A high school in our state.”

Quinn says the capacity for Clover High School including its ninth-grade academy is 3,090 students.

Student’s speak out

At the event earlier this month, students from Oakridge Middle School and Clover High School talked about their experiences with the overcrowding.

Dion Brown, a three-sport athlete at Clover, said the overcrowding has negatively impacted his studies.

“The crowding wasn’t as bad last year,” Brown said. “But I recall a couple times last year when I’d go to tutoring in the morning, and the teacher already has 15 students in there. Then, it’s like you’re really just going to a class, and you’re not getting that one-on-one tutoring that you should be getting, or that you think you’re going to get.

“This year, I haven’t even attempted to go in because it’s just gotten more crowded. So I don’t expect it to be more different.”

Bond opponents

Not everyone supports the bond referendum.

The Herald reached out to some bond opponents , but they declined to comment.

Quinn said she hears and understands the concerns people have, but time is running out to solve Clover’s overcrowding problems.

“It’s not ever going to get cheaper to build a second high school,” Quinn said. “Construction costs tend to go up. If we had passed the last bond, we would have gotten a 1.9% interest rate. That is not the interest rate we’ll get this time, so we need to do this now. Time is of the essence.”

This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 9:56 AM with the headline "Proposed school bond is Clover District’s plan for dealing with growth in that area."