Bond Funds Would Pay for Consolidated School Campus

The Bloomfield Hills (Mich.) district hopes to resolve the longstanding uncertainty over the future of its two high schools when voters go to the polls and decide the fate of a $59 million bond proposal.

The suburban Detroit school system would use the bond proceeds, along with $20 million in already accumulated funds, to go from two high schools to one. Lahser High would be closed, and the Andover High campus would be renovated and expanded to become Bloomfield Hills High School.

The fate of the district’s high schools has been the subject of disagreement for much of the last decade. The possibility of consolidating the two schools drew so much opposition that the board instead proposed rebuilding both Lahser and Andover. Voters rejected a $121 million bond in 2007 that would have paid for that plan.

Regardless of the outcome of the May bond vote, Bloomfield Hills school officials say they will move forward with the merger of the two high schools.