If you’re a Cashion High School student and you’re headed to math, Spanish or current issues class, you’ve got to trek over to the middle school.

Same goes for the district’s special education classes.

There’s quite literally no room for them at the high school.

That means the middle school is also full.

Same goes for the elementary. “We are at capacity,” said Superintendent Leon Ashlock, noting the district now has 758 students.

“We have absolutely no empty classrooms.”

It’s a problem, Ashlock says, that will only get worse.

The district’s enrollment has grown by 260 students since the beginning of 2014-15.

This year alone, Cashion has added more than 30 students since the school year began.

A recent forecast conducted by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association said Cashion’s enrollment will swell to more than 1,000 students in the next 10 years.

The forecast was based off a number of different data, including birth rates, economic conditions, new housing construction and more.

“We are glad people are wanting to come here because it’s a great school and a great community,” Ashlock said.

“But it’s happening too fast for us to keep up.”

So the district is attempting to begin the remedy for the lack of space.

The Cashion Board of Education has called for a 10-year, $21.52 million bond issue to provide additions to the high school and elementary.

Voters will decide its fate Tuesday, May 9. Bond issues require a super-majority of 60 percent approval to pass.

It’s not a remedy, Ashlock said. That’s not feasible as a cureall would be beyond Cashion’s bonding capacity.

But it is a start. “Our hope is that if we can get this passed, it should help us cover the growth for the next 10 years,” he said.

If passed, the bond issue will add five classrooms to the high school and two to the elementary.

The additional high school classrooms gets the current ones out of the middle school, freeing up that space for those students and teachers.

“We’ve converted teacher workrooms into offices. There isn’t a single classroom going unused. There are some people who don’t even have offices,” Ashlock said.

According to information on Cashion’s school website, the new classrooms “will prevent the district from needing to use portable buildings in the very near future.”

Additionally, the bonds would pay for a new elementary cafeteria/ kitchen that will also feature a stage.

“Right now we start serving food at 8 a.m. and go well into the afternoon because we only have the one cafeteria for all our students,” Ashlock said.

Also planned is a new elementary gym that will be used for physical education and all Cashion Athletic Sports Association activities.

Two of the new high school classrooms as well as the two new elementary classrooms will serve as tornado-safe shelters.

Passing a bond issue is asking citizens to raise their own taxes.

Passage of this one would see an 18 percent increase, meaning someone who pays $1,000 in annual taxes prior to the bond issue would pay just over $1,181 afterward.

Ashlock said he knows that can be a tough ask, but added that new families and students continue to find their way to Cashion.

“We’re really needing this at this point in time,” he said.

For more information on Cashion’s bond issue, visit the school website at cashionps.org.