GONZALES With a successful bond election behind them, Ascension Parish public school officials are taking the next steps to build a new high school at Prairieville.

Seventy-one percent of voters who turned out for the Aug. 15 election approved extending an existing property tax for 20 years to fund $140 million in bonds to build the high school and complete 13 other construction and improvement projects.

Originally slated to go before voters in May, an Ascension Parish school district proposal for building a new high school in Prairieville and

"We're thankful to be in a community that partners with us to provide state-of-the-art facilities for our students; we're fired up," Superintendent David Alexander said after a meeting of a board committee that approved a timeline for completing the $79.5 million high school in time for the start of school in 2023.

At its next meeting, set for Tuesday, the board is expected to hire the two Baton Rouge architect firms RHH Architects and Domain Architecture, which bid as a joint venture on the high school project.

A committee of school district personnel is recommending the joint-venture bid over five others to design the 280,000-square-foot school that will go up on Parker Road, next to Prairieville Primary.

The timeline of important milestones approved in committee last week for the project includes:

"It will be an aggressive schedule and we'll do our best," Jeff Parent, the district's supervisor of planning and construction, told board members.

The new high school will be the fourth on the east bank of the parish and is designed to relieve overcrowding at the others Dutchtown, East Ascension and St. Amant where student enrollment at each is nearing or past 2,000.

Other projects that will now be going forward after the recent bond election are:

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Ascension school district hits ground running in plans for new high school construction - The Advocate