Oldham-Ramona-Rutland, SD (KELO) –The Oldham-Ramona-Rutland school district is hoping the second time is the charm to build a new school.

Back in September voters rejected a nearly $19 million dollar bond issue. But now they’ve scaled it back some and are hoping this bond will be the one.

If these lockers could talk, they’d probably say this hallway is tight and outdated.

The Oldham-Ramona-Rutland school district says it needs a new school for a couple of reasons.

“One, we are one school district with 322 students and we need to be in one building, so we can more effectively improve academic achievement, our teachers can collaborate, and we can offer more electives for our students and we can better use our resources in one building,” Superintendent Dawn Hoeke said.

Because right now, those 300 plus K-12 students are taught in two separate schools; 16 miles apart and both are over 100 years old.

“It’s going to take a lot of money and resources to bring them up to code and to get them where they need to be if we were to stay in two schools,” Hoeke said.

That’s why she says it makes more sense to build than renovate.

The last time voters rejected the bond the vote was 277 yes and 305 no.

Of those 305 who voted no we couldn’t find anyone to go on camera to talk about why they voted no, but the district sent out a survey and the biggest reason was cost.

That’s why the district dropped the price tag on this bond to $15 million.

“So what the new building and new school would have is what we have now,” Hoeke said.

But it would be up to code and all under one roof.

Property taxes on this proposed $15 million dollars bond would go up an estimated .98 cents on every $100 thousand dollars worth of property.

Hoeke is going to spend the next two months educating voters on the bond using mailings and town hall meetings.