What's next for Fort Mill school district?

Thanks to the overwhelming support of our community, we successfully passed the March 4 bond referendum. This will allow the Fort Mill school district to provide classrooms for thousands of new students who will move into the area during the next five years. That begs the question, "What do we do next?"

The answer is both simple and complex. We first must acquire land for new schools and then create new attendance areas. In order to meet the ambitious timetable and to meet the goals of our Ten Year Facility Needs Study, we have been working on these issues. Some of those efforts have already been publicized in this newspaper.

You may recall that the school district has received offers of land from developers of the Massey neighborhood, and we are in discussions with officials in Tega Cay to secure an elementary school site. We also have looked at property near the site of the new York County museum and for a middle school site near the route of the southern leg of Springfield Parkway. More work must be done to secure these sites.

Our goal is to acquire all necessary sites by June. In anticipation, the district has identified architects to design the three new schools, as well as the additional high school gymnasiums and the stadium at Nation Ford High, and the design phase has begun. The athletic facilities are all scheduled to open in 2009.

By November, we plan to have new elementary attendance areas in place. The district has contracted with Dr. Dale Holden to develop a number of options that will be presented to the public next fall. Dr. Holden has helped the district with high school, middle school and elementary school attendance line issues since 2000. There will be a public meeting on May 19 to explain the process.

These attendance areas will help ease elementary school overcrowding when Sugar Creek Elementary and Pleasant Knoll Elementary open in August of 2009. You may recall that those schools are being built with money from an Installment Purchase Plan that was approved by the board in 2006.

The new attendance areas should also accommodate the opening of elementary schools Nos. 8 and 9 in 2011. When the elementary attendance areas have been approved, the district will then begin work on new middle school attendance areas. Middle school No. 4 is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010.

Since 2000, the district has opened five new schools on time and under budget. That is our goal once again.

This story was originally published May 6, 2008 at 12:39 AM with the headline "What's next for Fort Mill school district?."