Jefferson City's seven-member school board made no formal decisions Tuesday night, except to create a subcommittee to do more detailed studying.
However, during a nearly two-hour work session, they talked about the possibility of holding an election this November on one or more new building proposals.
"Dennis (Nicholson) made the point that, "I could argue both sides of the issue' - and I think anyone could, reasonably, do that," Board President John Ruth said. "But the issue we're looking at most of all is, what's the cost of waiting."
Chief Financial Officer Jason Hoffman told the News Tribune the benefit of a November election - even if the district has to pay all the costs because it would have the only issue on the ballot - "is that you're locking in today's rates. You'll know what they are, lock in those historically-low rates five months earlier than an April election."
With a likely more than $100 million price tag, even a small percentage change in interest rates is a significant amount of money, Hoffman noted. "I think the signs are pointing that they're going to go up, at some point," he added.
Board members also appeared to be leaning toward proposing the construction of a second public high school and renovating the existing Jefferson City High School campus, as the district's Long-Range Facility Planning Committee has recommended.
"I didn't hear anyone opposed to that idea tonight," Ruth said. "It was more a matter of, should it go first or second."
After approximately two decades of flat or slightly declining enrollment, Hoffman reminded the board some of the largest kindergarten classes in district history now are moving through the schools.
From September 1999 through September 2008, the peak kindergarten enrollment was 658 children in 2001-02, and the average was 639 kindergartners a year.
However, since 2009, that population has exploded, with a high of 821 students in 2010 and a low of 733 the year before.
Also, the average has been 757 students.
Building another elementary school will help deal with that extra pressure a little bit, Hoffman said.
"The first large kindergarten class that we've had will be in middle school next year," he explained, "so the big pressure (in three years) will be on Simonsen," the century-old Ninth Grade Center with an ideal capacity of fewer than 700 students.
With a projected enrollment of more than 9,600 students by the 2023-24 school year - just eight years from now - board members and other district officials say they must decide what to do about high school classes.
One option board members discussed Tuesday was asking voters to approve a new elementary school in November, then vote on a second high school proposal next April.
Several members thought that would help explain the need to voters better - and, if the voters said yes to the grade school, construction could begin soon enough to have it open for the 2017-18 school year, while waiting until the April election would mean it couldn't be ready until August 2018.
Others argued it might make more sense to have the two issues on the same ballot, so voters would understand the true, total costs - and not complain that the second issue was a surprise to them.
If voters approve building a second high school, an aggressive construction timeline would have it opening in August 2019, at the earliest.
However, how the board decides to pay for school expansion - assuming voters agree - also could determine when an election might be held.
The options include a lease-purchase arrangement, which would require a simple majority vote, or a bond issue - which would require a four-sevenths majority vote in the April, August or November 2016 elections, but a two-thirds majority if the question were placed on the ballot in November 2015.
"I think we'd be idiots to ask for a bond issue in a two-thirds election," Ruth told the News Tribune. "The amount that's needed wasn't addressed tonight."
The board has until late August to decide if it wants to hold a special election in November.