The Brighton Board of Education Monday night approved a bond issue of $53 million to go on the ballot next November as proposed by administration.

The board was hung up on the matter of whether certain items should be on it or not. Board Vice President Dave Chesney wanted the issue of a dome for practice by athletic teams taken off the list. Chesney said that a dome might be considered frivolous by the voters and could end up causing the bond issue to be defeated. Chesney – apparently fearing sticker shock on the part of voters, also had an issue with consolidating the storage area into one building, saying the cost was too high.

However, Board Secretary Roger Myers said that Brighton was probably the only school district of its size in the entire state that does not have a centralized location for all of its supplies and items that need to be stored. Chesney said the board needed to better define for the voters what the proposed STEAM centers on each school campus would be used for. The board then voted on separate motions to A) remove the dome and the STEAM centers from the bond issue and B) go with the bond issue as proposed by administration.

The first motion passed 5-2 with Chesney and Trustee Alicia Reid voting no, and the motion on the bond issue as a whole passed 6-1, with Chesney comprising the lone no vote. A major component of the bond issue will be a STEAM center for every school in the district. STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics – is an approach to learning that uses those five academic disciplines as access points for guiding student curiosity, dialogue, and critical thinking.

Gray has said that increasing the bond amount by $8 million from the originally proposed $45 million will not result in an increase in the current district millage of 7.19 mills, but could result in adding one more year before the bond is paid off. (TT)