At its work session Wednesday evening the Hood River County School District Board of Directors decided tentatively to move forward with plans to place a construction bond levy and local option levy on the ballot in May 2008.

The board will discuss the matter further at its next regular meeting, Feb. 13 in the Hood River Valley High School library, where community members will also have an opportunity to weigh in on the subject.

Another work session, likely Feb. 20, is planned to deliberate further on details of the ballot packages. Time for a public hearing will be allotted at the Feb. 27 board meeting. The board hopes to adopt a ballot title by March 12; filing day is March 20.

Several public forums, including one in Spanish, have been held to keep community members in the loop, as well as a telephone survey and an online survey. Data will be analyzed and presented for review at the Feb. 13 meeting, but initial review of the data seems to show overall community support.

Since the online survey received a mere nine responses, several board members felt that it should be extended and better promoted to get more input from the community.

The board consensus was that the construction bond levy was necessary to bring the district’s aging school buildings up to current safety and efficiency standards and to relieve overcrowding at the high school.

The board also agreed that extending the local option levy, which provides operating money and expires this year, would help the district to keep class sizes small and maintain enrichment opportunities such as all-day kindergarten and music/PE specialists in elementary schools, without raising taxes.

Because of weather-related closures last month in the east county (Hood River) schools, there will definitely be school on Feb. 15 and March 21, two of the emergency make-up days built into the school calendar, according to Dr. Pat Evenson-Brady, schools superintendent.

In Cascade Locks, however, there will be no school on Feb. 15. The school district will wait until March 7 to announce whether Cascade Locks will have school on the March 21 make-up day.