GROVE, Okla. — Voters will soon head to the polls to decide on a proposed bond by Grove Public Schools.

Grove Public Schools and Crossland Construction company have proposed a bond to fund a new high school and to update their current high school to house junior high students.

Administrators say it’s important that this bond is passed on to give students the best educational experience possible.

“So we have 800 kids and in every grade level coming up every other grade level, we’re over 200. So we have to plan when you get to about 70% capacity, you’d better start putting a pencil to the paper because it takes about three years. We’re currently at 85% district-wide and our high school is at 96%. We need to do something right now because it’s not the best learning environment when you have 34, 35 kids in the classroom,” said Pat Dodson, Superintendent.

“We have people that want to transfer into grove right now and they cannot. If they move here we have to take them but right now we currently only have one grade that’s not at capacity and that’s our junior class,” said Bobby Kreutz, Principal.

With the district being almost at full capacity, it impacts the relationships between students and teachers, in addition to the way students learn.

“You know as a student who learns better, you know one on one when it feels like it’s just you and teacher talking when you do have a crowded classroom you have students like that that learn better in that environment it’s really hard to feel like you understand what’s going on,” said Emmanuel Crawford, Senior.

“As a freshman, we are the biggest class in the school, we have about almost 300 kids just in our class alone. That’s putting it to about 40 kids in, maybe, in each class. I think if we got a new high school and the bond went through, then we would have more classrooms, more teachers, more experiences to get close with the teachers,” said Avery Nichols, Freshman.

The proposed 87.2 million dollar bond will fund a new gym and practice facilities to support athletes in grades 7th through 12th.

“So we’ll need a basketball gym. The gym, currently at the high school when the high school was built it was only designed to be a practice gym. So we want to build a competitive gym that we can have our boys and girls practice because right now we have to go across town every other day because of title nine we have equal facilities,” said Dodson.

“Right now we cheer upstairs at our basketball gym. We have room for about two mats. We don’t have a room we don’t have a spring floor, no mirrors, nothing really. If we do have the time or need to work outside of school, we have to go to a separate gym to practice,” said Nichols.

If the bond is passed it will impact the entire Grove School District.

“It’s going to help me but and that’s very important obviously, but I also think how it’s going to help our other members of the community and that’s our middle school and our elementary school,” said Bobby Kreutz Principal.

“This is an investment in our kids, and of course, I look at it as paying great dividends because it’s the opportunities for our kids,” said Dodson.