A small school district in central east Colorado wants to build a new pre-K to 12th grade elementary school but is hampered by one thing: a lack of funds.
Last year, the Kiowa School District was awarded a big $55.5 million grant from Colorado’s innovative Building Excellent Schools Today program. But that funding evaporated when district voters by a 51% to 49% margin in November rejected a $13.5 million bond designed to serve as matching funding for the BEST grant.
The school, which earlier reports said would be built on some 40 acres the district owns off County Road 45, would replace a current facility at 210 West 10th Street. District officials said that the roughly 50-year-old building has a series of structural issues and is located in an area that frequently floods.
Now the BEST program has announced it is once again awarding a grant to the district for a new school, this time for $60 million The extra funding, reports the Elbert County News, is designed to “reduce the tax burden being asked of the community.”
Even so, the district is required to once again ask voters to approve matching funding, which now comes to $9.9 million.
In an announcement released by the district bearing the headline “We’ve Been Given A Second Chance,” it is noted that it would cost at least $28 million to bring the current school up to date, while also complying with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
Reports indicate that if voters this time give a green light to the matching funds, work could begin on the new 96,000-square-foot school in the fall of 2026, with a targeted completion date of spring 2028.
July 31, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Kiowa School District poster
