WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI - Voters spoke in favor of constructing a new $53.2 million school for special-needs students just outside Ann Arbor.

The Washtenaw Intermediate School District bond proposal was approved Tuesday, Aug. 6, with voters opting to fund the demolition and rebuilding of the High Point School for special-needs students. Voters approved the bond by a 15,595 (55.85%) to 12,329 (44.15%) margin.

The bond proposed a 0.37-mill tax increase that will generate $53.2 million, allowing for the renovation of High Point School’s existing gymnasium and pool where adaptive aquatics and adaptive physical education would continue, officials said.

The project also will fund demolition of one of the remaining parts of the building that would no longer be used, and allow construction of new classrooms, special subject rooms for music and art and professional rooms to support occupational and physical therapy, officials said.

Washtenaw Intermediate School District Superintendent Scott Menzel said the goal is to have planning completed and bids out as soon as possible, moving into a temporary location between Christmas and the end of the year. Demolition could begin as early as the first quarter of 2020, with construction of the new building targeted for spring 2020.

The target date for opening the renovated facility is fall 2021, Menzel said.

“We are absolutely grateful for every person who turned out and supported this bond campaign,” he said. “We are of course ecstatic of the outcome that will support students with the most significant disabilities with a facility designed to meet their needs in both the near and long term future.”

Opened in 1975, High Point School originally was built for students considered “trainable mentally impaired” – an outdated term no longer used in education – where they gained vocational skills in kitchen and cafeteria work, grounds maintenance, laundry, and other service-oriented careers.

Of 30 to 35 new classrooms proposed to be built, nearly half of them would be for Honey Creek Community School, a local nonprofit charter school that has occupied classrooms since 1995 in High Point School.

The new building would include 10 to 11 classrooms for High Point, 14 for Honey Creek, one for deaf and hard-of-hearing students and two for Gretchen’s House, a local childcare center in Ann Arbor. Additional classrooms would be set aside for potential enrollment growth at High Point.

Honey Creek rents classroom space from the WISD, paying $204,000 in rent for the 2018-19 fiscal year. The charter school is a nonprofit authorized by the WISD, which reauthorized it for another five years in 2019.

The makeup of the building includes 30 to 35 classrooms on one side of the building; additional rooms for use by physical therapists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and other special needs workers; new equipment and furniture; storage space, technological improvements and energy-efficient infrastructure.

The proposed school will be 27,000-square-feet larger than the current building. Classrooms are expected to be nearly 1,000 square feet with individual bathrooms – larger than the current classroom that range between 550 and 700 square-feet, Menzel previously noted.

The school will accommodate students ages three to 26, with fenced-off playgrounds for different age groups. Every classroom would have windows for daylight.

The 10-year, 0.37-mill tax increase would cover the demolition and new construction, costing the owner of a $300,000 home about $55.50 annually, or about $4.63 a month.

The total number of students with disabilities in WISD-run programs is 380 in the 2018-19 school year, according to the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Improvement. Of those 380 students, the following number enrolled through each local school district: