What is the 2024 Mill & Bond?

The Cherry Creek School District is currently asking voters to approve a voting measure to allow multiple schools across the district to be refurbished, added to, or completely rebuilt. Coloradans who live in the CCSD will vote on the issue, which would include a tax increase, as part of the federal election ballot they’ll be casting on Nov. 5. But how does the measure work, and what does it mean?

A mill and bond election is broken up into two parts: a $950 million bond, and a $30 million mill levy increase. The $30 million will be reserved for school funding issues like teacher salaries, maintenance, safety projects, regulating class size, and specialized programs like ILC classrooms. Beyond that, the $950 million bond measure, if approved by voters, will begin the process of reconstructing Creek, as well as other schools in the district.

“We’re reaching a point, like many of our neighboring districts, where our post World War Two buildings are just at the end of useful life,” CCSD Chief Financial Officer Scott Smith said during a presentation to parents on Sept. 11. “Does it make more sense to replace a building that is seven years old, as opposed to keep putting money into it and keep trying to keep it open, which we have varying degrees of success with?”

At Creek, many buildings, or parts of buildings, have been added-on or rebuilt since its opening. The IC building has been updated, including the new space called the IC Cafe in 2022. HVAC and other ventilation systems in all buildings are consistently being worked on as well, but the differences in age between the systems often leads to vastly different classroom temperatures across campus.

If approved, taxpayers in the CCSD would see increased taxes: each household would see a $3 tax increase per $100,000 dollar value of their home. “So if you own a half million dollar house, it’d be $15 a month. If you own a million dollar house, [it] would be $30 a month,” Smith said.

As part of the bond, Creek itself would hope to see the complete reconstruction of its campus, along with the campuses of the Belleview elementary and Campus middle schools over a three-bond measure. If approved, this $950 million bond would pay for the complete relocation of Creek’s administrative offices, and the teardown and rebuilding of the West building.

“We’re having indoor air quality issues and other plumbing issues in the West building at Cherry Creek that are just getting really, really hard to keep those buildings on a day to day basis,” Smith said.

By contributing the extra tax money, schools around the district would also see reconstruction or new additions. Laredo Middle School would be rebuilt, eventually replacing Smoky Hill high school. The Prairie Overland campus would see renovations to its Institute of Science and Technology building, as well as the addition of a pool and the expansion of its admissions office.
The Holly Ridge (grades K-2) and Holly Ridge (grades 3-5) campuses, which are currently split into two different buildings, a 13 minute walk away from each other, would be combined into one PK-5 building. The Hollies campus would also see the addition of a new building, one dedicated to a “Living Learning” facility for the CCSD’s teacher licensing program.

At the district level, there’s hope that construction will extend into 2028 and 2032 with the passage of an additional two bond measures. If a bond measure is passed in 2028, the remainder of the Creek campus, along with the Campus and Belleview campuses, will be rebuilt in 2028 and 2032 respectively.

For members of the district, there are two motivations behind the passage of the $950 million bond. Fiscally, construction prices are consistently increasing, and if the construction was delayed further, the bond could cost upwards of $1.5 billion. Otherwise, many believe that it’s time for students in the CCSD to see updated school buildings.

“Our kids deserve the opportunity to learn in schools that are 21st century schools,” CCSD Board of Education District A Director Anne Egan said during a bond proposal meeting on Sept. 11.

How Would Life on Campus Work?

As the 2024 Mill & Bond plan has gained more circulation, more and more questions have started to come up about how life at Creek will continue during construction.

If passed, many students, parents, and members of the community have expressed concern about academics, student life, traditions, and the how Cherry Creek Innovation Campus (CCIC) will function during an ongoing construction project.

With the potential tearing down and rebuilding of the West building starting in 2025, there’s the underlying possibility that students and faculty on campus will see interruptions, but most administrative officials believe that issues will be minimal.

“In the first phase, [students] shouldn’t be impacted as much because the West Building is going to be built where the administration buildings are, so it won’t impact day-to-day life very much,” Smith said.

The reconstruction of the West building would primarily only affect the building site itself; which is currently planned to be contained in the administrative office building areas around Stutler Bowl. Because the building site is near parking lots like Stutler Bowl and West, there is the possibility of parking interruption. Beyond potential issues with parking, there is concern from parents and teachers that issues like noise and pollution could interrupt students.

“Noise during construction would definitely be a distraction, and it could be tough having to deal with longer walks between buildings,” junior Sophia Stansbury said. “It just seems like a lot to juggle while still trying to have a normal school day.”

Because the new West building is currently planned to be placed near the corner of Yosemite and Union Street, where the current administrative offices are, officials predict that the only major impacts will be to parking.

“We would lose, I’d say, 150 to 200 [spots],” Principal Ryan Silva said. “The impact to instruction might just be that we have that many more kids who have to park off campus.”

Despite the possible interruption of student life, there are minimal plans in place to help students find new places to park, or how to deal with noise pollution in the area. Because the district can’t create exact design plans for the new buildings until the bond passes, the specifics on how construction will happen is unclear, making it harder to look into how students will work around construction. However, officials designing the project believe that the project will have minimal impact on student life.

“I can’t say it won’t at all, because it will be construction going up, but it won’t be impacting everywhere that kids are currently moving through the campus,” Smith said.

Creek hosts about 10 to 15 sport events every day, alongside multiple performances, club meetings, and other events throughout the school year. For most students, having their campus bustling with activity is important, and because of that, there’s a rising concern that construction will disrupt Creek’s day-to-day life.

Important activities like sports games, especially those played in Stutler Bowl, might be interrupted by construction. Because the current plan would have buildings going into place around Stutler Bowl, there’s the possibility that increased noise could disrupt games.

“When you think about our after school events that are in the stadium, whether that’s track or field hockey, soccer, football, most of it might be when construction is done [for the day], although I don’t know if, because they want to get it done as quickly as possible, if [crews would work later]; then those could be impacted with noise,” Silva said.

In addition to sports games, graduation could also pose a challenge. At the moment, there are no plans, other than working around construction, in place to prevent interruptions.

“The campus has a certain vibe that’s developed over the years, and if they completely overhaul it, we could lose some of that,” Stansbury said.

Preserving artifacts and parts of the current campus has also been important to constituents of the projects, especially pieces of Creek’s history through its tradition of senior gifts. According to Silva, as many senior gifts will be incorporated into the new buildings, and there’s the possibility of a new ‘alumni hall’ being created.

“This is not about throwing out 75 years of history and tradition,” Smith said. “It’s about honoring 75 years of history and tradition.”

How Could Creek Stay Sustainable? 

From an environmental standpoint, the reconstruction of a school campus is an extremely complex process to manage.

Over the course of the design process, however, admin have created work groups and collected information from people across the district to aid the process. As part of a meeting in spring 2024, science teacher Jeff Boyce, who specializes in environmental science, met with Cooper Carry, an architectural firm, to discuss how Creek could work towards a more sustainable path.

“I told them that my classroom faces where this construction is going to happen, and every day for the next, however many years that they’re building, I’m either going to be in my classroom talking on a daily basis about how Creek got it right, or I’ll be talking about how Creek got it wrong, because we’re so focused on saving as much money [as possible] right now,” Boyce said.

Building sustainably encompasses many factors, including energy sources, lighting, materials, noise and material pollution, and more. When balancing the overall cost of a building project and how to create something new in a healthy way, there are often environmental grants that companies can apply for; where they would receive funding aid in return for meeting a specific environmental standard.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification is a rating system and grant program that focuses on creating sustainable construction standards. The program, led by the U.S. Green Building Council, aims to create “healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings, which offer environmental, social and governance benefits,” according to their website.

According to Boyce, partnering with programs like LEED could help the 2024 Mill & Bond Measure receive more funding. “[If we don’t apply for grants,] we’re leaving money on the table,” he said. “We’re leaving opportunities on the table.”

Besides meeting specific environmental standards, there are many small changes that Creek can make in order to create a more sustainable campus: solar energy, organic and natural materials, electrifying buses, making heating room-specific, and more. Many of these changes are built around the goal of reaching “Net Zero” for all buildings on the campus, meaning that the entire campus balances out its emissions to reach net zero waste.

“There’s a bunch of net zero categories,” Boyce said. “We can talk about net zero water, and we can talk about net zero energy, and we can talk about electricity, and net zero carbon.”

While planning at the district level is still minimal, due to the fact that the bond has not yet been passed, officials are hoping to focus on environmental standards while building.

“We will do everything to the highest standard that we possibly can,” CCSD Superintendent Christopher Smith said during a Sept. 17 meeting with the community. “One of our organization’s core values is whole well being, and we take that very seriously.”