The Wayland Board of Education Monday night decided to split the bond issue in next May’s election into two separate proposals, one for academics and the other for athletics.

Superintendent Norm Taylor since then has outlined what each proposal seeks and the costs in a communication to citizens’ committee members.

Proposal 1 would cost approximately $33.6 million and includes:

• Facility infrastructure needs – including health and safety upgrades; academic/instructional needs; mechanical, technology, and roof upgrades; and improvements to parking lots, drives and drainage.

• Adding a new wing at the middle school to accommodate sixth grade.

• Constructing a new grades 4-5 upper elementary school to accommodate approximately 500 students

Proposal 2 would cost about $20.8 million and includes:

• A new 10-lane swimming pool to replace the existing aging 42-year-old current pool (anticipated to be built at the high school adjacent to the Fitness Center and including locker rooms for public use).

• Converting the current pool space for potentially a new auto body and robotics classroom.

• Converting the current auto body space into a new band/orchestra classroom/rehearsal space.

• Building 12 new tennis courts at the site of the current eight courts by the soccer field along Wildcat Drive and abandoning the six current tennis courts by the football field and converting that space to needed additional parking.

• Renovating the excessive crown and drainage at the football field and replacing the grass with a new artificial turf field.

Taylor said, “The committee researched previous health concerns with turf fields and found them not to be a concern with current turf fields. They are safe.”

Though the school board and committee originally favored building a grades K-5 elementary school near the transportation building, Taylor explained, “We chose the grades 4-5 upper elementary school as a better solution to our needs for a variety of reasons: a more concise curriculum, greater grade level teacher collaboration, focused intervention and enrichment programming, grouping upper elementary students together, the ability to better balance class sizes, and it would not require us to re-district our current boundaries, which we would need to do if we went with multiple K-5 schools.”

School officials, the school board, architects Tower Pinkster of Grand Rapids and a citizens’ committee have been meeting and planning for a bond issue for more than a year, and there were several public meetings as well.

The proposals must now go to the Michigan Department of Treasury as part of the preliminary qualification application process for their approval to place projects on the ballot next May.

The Citizens’ Advisory Committee and school officials agreed to go ahead with a bond after it was determined the Wayland school district will experience even more population in the future.

“Our fall count this year is up approximately 60 students to around 2,990 students,” the superintendent noted. “This is the fourth enrollment increase in the past five years or a net increase of about 185 students since the fall of 2011.

“Our district is averaging more than 60 new housing starts annually in the past two years… We’re told Leighton Township is the fastest growing township in the state. Hunter’s Glen in Moline is adding 116 new housing units over the next year. Housing developments also remain strong in the Gun Lake area of our district.”

Taylor said the district will grow by another 264 students by the 2020-2021 school year, to approximately 3,254 students.