BOWLING GREEN, OH (WTOL) - After more than a year of debate, Bowling Green residents could see some major changes to their school district.
Bowling Green City School's Board of Education voted on consolidating all three elementary schools in to one new one, and redoing the high school.
Their next step is putting a levy on the ballot in November. if it passes, this could be a three and a half year project.
Only one board member voted against the project, saying she thought it was too expensive, and less personal to have all elementary students in one building.
"It was a great discussion a lot of different points of view and this decision could be a decision that impacts our community and our students for a lot of years", says Superintendent Francis Scruci.
The price tag on this whole project is around $72 million.
Despite some people at the meeting speaking highly of neighborhood schools, the ability for all teachers to collaborate in one building won out.
Educators discussed the ability to have collaboration time, share resources, and exchange ideas.
This new elementary school and redone high school could begin as early as next summer, but Scruci knows how important conversations with taxpayers are the next six months.
"Certainly we're not going to take anything for gr anted and we're going to have to do a really good job of making sure that our community understands what the project is about and the reasons for that decision", said Scruci.
Others discussed how investing in education will benefit the community as a whole, and hopefully create a "drive-by" effect, encouraging people to move to Bowling Green.
The estimate is this would cost around $200 per $100,000 home.
