{"id":32384,"date":"2014-08-17T00:44:26","date_gmt":"2014-08-17T04:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=32384"},"modified":"2014-08-15T21:49:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T01:49:04","slug":"exploding-lee-schools-population-creates-need-for-new-high-school-in-lehigh-acres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2014\/08\/exploding-lee-schools-population-creates-need-for-new-high-school-in-lehigh-acres\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploding Lee Schools Population Creates Need for New High School in Lehigh Acres"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-32385\" title=\"classroom\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/classroom-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/classroom-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/classroom.jpg 539w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>A big problem is looming for the Lehigh Acres High Schools.<\/p>\n<p>Student population is exploding and in just three years the district will be at its capacity.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of this year, Lee County expects to reach 89,000 students.<\/p>\n<p>The district says it needs two new high schools. One is needed in Lehigh Acres the other in Bonita Springs where the largest influx of students is being seen.<\/p>\n<p>District leaders say there is just one big problem.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They don&#8217;t have the money needed to build the new facilities.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->\u201cWe project by 2017-18 we will reach our maximum capacity,\u201d said Director of Planning Mark Mora.<\/p>\n<p>He said some campuses could possibly see crowding as early as this year as some buildings will be using spaces that weren&#8217;t traditionally used as classrooms in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Two new high schools will cost about $110 million to build.\u00a0\u00a0The district has several options it can consider in order to pay for the buildings &#8211; one includes raising the state sales tax in Lee County to 6.5 percent to pay for them.<\/p>\n<p>District leaders say it will take about two years to build the two new schools.\u00a0\u00a0They say in order to get the doors opened by 2017 they need a commitment to build them by February, 2015.\u00a0 That is an issue school board members say they will debate in coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A big problem is looming for the Lehigh Acres High Schools. Student population is exploding and in just three years the district will be at its capacity. By the end&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}