With existing campuses serving more students than planned and Santa Maria still growing, Santa Barbara County’s largest school district has asked voters to approve a new bond measure.
The Nov. 5 ballot includes Santa Maria-Bonita School District’s Measure K, a $77 million bond to replace aging portable buildings with modern permanent classrooms, build additional classrooms/schools to reduce overcrowding, repair leaking roofs and deteriorated plumbing, and more.
“We have a growing population here in the city of Santa Maria — new developments that are online or coming online — and we don’t have near enough classrooms to meet the demands of the state for class sizes, for all-day transitional kindergarten and kindergarten,” said Matt Beecher, deputy superintendent of business services for the district…