Report Backs JC Schools Numbers

A state report, ordered by the Jefferson City school district, confirms the math in the district’s proposal to build a single new high school campus.The Missouri School Board Association issued the report Friday, after a commission spent about a week and a half sorting through research about costs and logistics. One opposition group has called on the district to release more information about its decision to pursue a single high school solution to growing overcrowding and aging facilities.In the report, the four person review committee found that the new Jefferson City High School plan creates the largest in the state. But the committee said the district had taken enough steps to expand programming and extracurricular opportunities within the plan that it didn’t feel as though more students would “slip through the cracks,” because of the academy set-up.Among other findings in the report: re-enforcement of academy learning as”21st century learning” and backing up of dollar figures the district has used to explain costs comparisons between building a new single campus or expanding to a second high school.The review committee found the district would incur costs associated with hiring new staff and increased maintenance costs across the old and new facilities under the two high school option.Jefferson City schools has less than one month to decide whether or not to put a bond and tax levy issue on the April 2013 ballot to support the development of the new academies campus. Initial estimates put that cost at a $0.55 issue.