Bismarck School District Moving Forward | Video

Kristin Clouston | 9/26/2012

Mandan just passed its school bond, and some people are now asking if the district will move as fast as Bismarck has. The Capital City`s school bond passed last week and the district has already broken ground for two schools. Today Bismarck Public Schools broke ground on a new elementary school in the northwest part of town and held a ground breaking ceremony for the school in Lincoln on Monday. Those are just two things on a long list of projects that need to get done quickly.

If they can get the materials, crews to do the work and a little help from mother nature there will be a school here next fall.

The superintendent says soon...you`ll be able to follow the progress of this and other major projects online.

"So we will have that right on the Bismarck Public School website, links to all of the projects that are going on. We even have been talking about how we can get some continual project updates so people can measure Lincoln progress against the northwest progress and they can keep an eye on the new high school development," said superintendent Tamara Uselman.

The district wants to start working on the Lincoln school in October, the northwest school around November and has narrowed the location for the new high school down to four sites.

"Now what we`re doing is analyzing not only the location but some of the costs. So water and sewer might be more expensive and the land cheaper or the land might be more expensive but the water and sewer are nearby," said director of facilities Darin Scherr.

They hope to make a final decision on that within a couple of weeks. The board is also working on plans to fix up and expand other schools.

"We`re developing a list of needs in every single building in the district and the school board is going to take a pretty comprehensive study on what needs to be done," Uselman said.

Once that`s done it will lay out a plan, share it with the public and create a timeline for those equity issues.

The board is also going to start work on rezoning the school boundaries in October and is forming a committee of 50 people to work with a planner. If you`re interested in serving on the re-zoning committee call community relations director Renae Hoffmann Walker at 701-323-4091.

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