On November 5th the Cherry Creek School District passed the 2024 Mill and Bond Measure. From this bond schools can expect maintenance, technology, safety, security, and innovation improvements, as well as renovations, and new construction.
The mill and bond is set up so schools in the Cherry Creek School District can be functional and make sure the buildings are up to standard. If a school such as Overland High School is missing a key feature, such as a pool, district officials will look to fill the gaps.
CCIC is becoming a big part in a lot of students’ careers, and when they made IST it had the purposes to do some of the things that CCIC does but was never brought up again until recently. Since CCIC has become so popular, especially the medical field pathways, the District plans on bringing additional classes to the IST building to give more access to programs.
According to Assistant Principal David Ford, “The goal is to make it primarily Overland students that have access to the new programs being that we’re one of the campuses farthest away from CCIC. Traveling to CCIC has a bigger impact on your schedule, because you have to miss an entire period.”
Additionally, Overland is located down the street from a medical park. Having these Hospitals nearby lets IST build connections with the hospitals allowing a more effective use of the IST medical career classes.
Ford explains, “The healthcare profession is overflowing at CCIC. We are the high school that’s closest to Children’s Hospital and UC Health, and we can create some pretty natural partnerships with them.”
While there will be challenges to face, Ford reassures, “Don’t feel like we are losing the IST building, but it will be changed with the intent to open up new career pathways for Overland students.”
During construction the Overland building will be more crowded. Computer classes will likely still take place in the IST building as it has been running, either alongside CCIC or individually have computer labs and so on, but unfortunately the science classes and all that are all moving back, so the teachers will be sharing offices with fellow teachers, making it a little bit more crowded, but nothing we can’t handle.
Now whether these changes are good or bad for Overland students, they will be coming forth as the 2024 Mill and Bond was passed. This means taxpayers can expect a tax increase of less than $3 a month for each $100,000 of property value. They will use this money to better the quality of the Cherry Creek Schools and better the lives of the students that go there.
