KALISPELL — Kalispell School District officials held a special celebration Thursday morning at Glacier High School to celebrate the successful payoff of a 20-year, $37.3 million bond for construction of the school.
“Just a lot of gratitude for the decision our community made 20 years ago,” said Kalispell School District Superintendent Matt Jensen.
In the fall of 2004, Kalispell voters approved a bond that ended up totaling $37.3 million to build a new high school for the Kalispell School District. Now, 20 years later, that bond is officially paid off for Glacier High School.
“When you pass a bond, it has a 20-year term and you’re making payments just similar to a mortgage; you’re making payments for 20 years, and we’ve hit 20 years, so the mortgage is paid, it’s done, it comes off of the taxes, everybody is appreciative of that,” said Jensen.
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Jensen said the addition of Glacier High School has doubled the extracurricular opportunities for students in the district over the last 20 years.
“So when you’re a one high school Double A district, you’re just limiting how many students can participate in speech and debate, how many students are on the court, on the fields, you know what classrooms look like and what the density of students looks like in a building.”
Jensen said the initial investment to build Glacier High School has more than tripled in value over the last 20 years.
“If we were to redo this right now, if it wouldn’t have passed 20 years ago and we were still sitting on this request, it would be a $140 to a $170 million request from what was $37 million 20 years ago,” said Jensen.
Former Kalispell Superintendent Darlene Schottle gave remarks during the celebration, crediting a total team effort to gather support for the bond 20 years ago.
“We would essentially just put together a whole list of who do we need to see, who do we need to talk to,” said Schottle.
Before the help of social media, Schottle said her team held 200 face-to-face meetings with Kalispell community members leading up to the bond vote.
“To give them a chance to provide information and to ask us questions, I think was really very key in having everyone come together to pass this original bond,” said Schottle.
