The November 2007 voter approval of a $45 million bond issue ensured that public school students in Eudora will not have to school attend mobile classrooms much longer.

Overcrowding at Nottingham Elementary School and Eudora Middle School has forced the district to place mobile classrooms at both sites. As a results, projects to add classrooms for those students were placed at the top of the bond priority list.

The work will start with a new $27 million, 1,000-student capacity elementary school to be built at 10th and Peach streets in east Eudora. The building will serve all of the district’s first- through fifth-graders and is to open in August 2009.

A groundbreaking ceremony occurred in March, and full-scale construction will start after the city of Eudora approves the final plat and final site plan, which was to occur this month.

With the opening of the new elementary school, West Elementary will be converted to an early childhood center for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. The bond earmarked $380,000 for the conversion, which will put bathrooms in all classrooms. That project also is slated to be finished in August 2009.

The $3 million improvements to Eudora Middle School are also to be completed for the start of the 2009-2010 school year. That project includes an expansion of the school’s lunchroom and classroom additions.

The remaining bond projects are to be completed for the 2010-2011 year. They include a new 750-seat auditorium and new classrooms for Eudora High School at a cost of $7 million; a new district stadium with a capacity to seat more than 4,000 spectators at a cost of $3 million; and a new Eudora-De Soto Technical Education Center. The technical center’s two buildings will be home to auto collision technology classes and proposed biotechnology and industrial technology programs at a cost of $3 million.

The remaining funds will be spent on technological and security upgrades, traffic and pedestrian safety and debt consolidation.

With the new construction, the school district also must decide the fate of Nottingham Elementary School, which will become vacant when the new elementary school is opened, Laws Field and the Community Learning Center. The three properties are located on highly desirable sites for future commercial development.

Initially, it was thought each property was going to be discussed individually in the context of whether they would be sold.

Eudora Superintendent Marty Kobza said the district would be careful in making decision because of the properties’ importance to the city’s future.

“There’s absolutely a duty there, which is to think very responsibly,” he said. “If we can add to the overall tax base, if we can lessen the burden on the individual homeowner from a tax standpoint by bringing in commercial properties, we have to really look at an opportunity to do that and help the city in its growth plan.”