(Milford)– Leaders of the Okoboji Community Schools say they’re excited about the district’s future with Tuesday’s passage of a $69 million bond issue to build a new elementary school and to make improvements at the high school. The Okoboji School District has seen a dramatic increase in enrollment in recent years, which is expected to continue in the future. That, combined with an outdated elementary building, portions of which date back to the early 1900’s, has brought forth a number of challenges. Superintendent Todd Abrahamson says now they can meet those head-on…
“We built the new middle school four years ago; have re-done our sporting complex, our football field and track facilities, now our baseball and softball are just about completed as well and with the bus barn. And I think that over the last six years if my math is correct, our voters have now approved two G.O. bonds in the amount of 94 million dollars and then another 11 million dollars in a revenue bond, so our community has invested approximately 105 million dollars back to the school district. That has really set our district up for the future for decades and I just can’t thank our supporters and the voters and the entire Okoboji community to make this happen for our kiddos and our parents, our staff, and also for economic development. I mean this is a game changer.”
Abrahamson says the construction will be done in three phases with designing already kicking into high gear…
“Phase one will be starting the new elementary build and then the addition of the multi-purpose/activities facility and the expansion of the kitchen and commons will be phase one. It’s anticipated that groundbreaking would happen late spring but we’ll know more on that in the next few days. You know we’ve been doing some small things with the design meeting with staff and that really helps now to go into the full phase of the design phase so once that gets done we’ll bring those designs to the board for approval to get the bid documents ready and get out there.”
The second phase will include classroom add-ons at the high school while the third phase involves renovations of the 1960’s portion of that facility. If things go as planned, the new elementary will be completed in August, 2026 with all of the construction at the high school completed in 2028.
