Editorial: Innovative proposal could build schools

Sunday, Sept. 12, 1999 | 9:38 a.m.

The Clark County School District has experienced phenomenal growth -- and it doesn't appear to be letting up anytime soon. Just nine years ago there were 122,000 students here. Today there are 216,000 students in our local public schools and this number is expected to skyrocket to 347,000 nine years from now. As the Sun's Ed Koch reported last week, voters approved a $3.5 billion school bond last year, but there is a need to build these schools faster than the existing bond issue permits.

So the school district staff is preparing a plan to present to the School Board that would allow the district to borrow future income from last year's school bond, bringing in $675 million to help pay the construction of nine more schools by 2003, in addition to the 39 new schools expected to be built by then. The financing plan appears reasonable and the School Board should seriously consider this proposal to keep pace with our growth.

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