Discussion is now on the table for renovating Junction City High School or building a new school altogether.

At the Special Board of Education meeting Tuesday night the subject was brought to the table.

Dr. Corbin Witt, Superintendent for USD 475 said, “We discussed using $32 million of the heavily impacted aid from the District and then with the 48% the state would put in we could possibly around $70 million to do something with the high school; but a lot of that changes with bonds and the bond rates and cost construction, so we’re going back and meeting with the architects and seeing what they think they can do with that amount of money and whether that can even go forward on building a high school.”

Witt says that the last time [they] did a facilities discussion, the figure then was around $120 million.

“That was trying to find 100 acres of land….we would have to look at what it costs to build on the same location – I think we’d have to go up; but we’re going to look at all the different possibilities and see how we would do something like that,” said Witt.

No one could readily identify a location that was around 100 acres of land in the area they’d like for a new high school.

“[We’d] have to talk to the group that gives you information on bond issues to find out what kind of mill levy it would take to build a high school or refurbish the high school, and talk to the Board,” said Witt.

Witt said that the Board came back saying that, “we would support any bond issue that looked to build a high school or something like that but we don’t want any increase in the mill levy.”

For now, the possibility of a new high school or a complete renovation on the existing one is just in the discussion stage.

This will be an ongoing talk for at least another year.