Print edition: 
Two years ago, Sarah Olson was heading into the final days of a heated campaign to persuade Wichita voters to approve a $370 million school bond issue.
Tuesday morning she wore a hard hat, held a shovel and helped break ground for the city's first new high school in more than 30 years.
"It's incredibly exciting," said Olson, a real estate agent who in 2008 helped coordinate the pro-bond group Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education.
"This brings it all back — how important schools are for our kids and this community."
The Wichita district broke ground Tuesday on two new schools in its northeast quadrant — a high school at 53rd North and Rock Road, and a K-8 school about a mile to the west, at 53rd North and Woodlawn.
Both are part of the record-setting bond issue approved by voters two years ago.
"I can't tell you how exciting it is to see our dreams fulfilled," school board president Connie Dietz told students, school officials and others gathered on a windy Bel Aire field.
As part of the ceremony, students ran a relay from the site of the new K-8 school to the new high school site, then presented superintendent John Allison with a Wichita schools flag and bags of dirt from the K-8 site. The Heights High School band provided drumrolls and music.
"This is really an historic occasion," Allison said, "and the beginning of two phenomenal schools."
The schools are being built to relieve overcrowding in the district's northeast quadrant, particularly at Heights High School. They are scheduled to open in the fall of 2012.
The new $31 million high school, designed by Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture, will open with about 800 students but is being designed to accommodate up to 1,200. It will feature a "main street" hall concept, a 900-seat auditorium and fine arts suite, career and technical education classrooms, a 2,400-seat gymnasium and a practice gym that will double as a storm shelter.
The $16 million K-8 school, designed by GLMV Architecture, will feature three classroom wings, an 800-seat auditorium and music suites, and a gym that will serve as a storm shelter. It is designed to eventually become a middle school as district growth demands.
Building new schools means the district will need to redraw attendance boundaries for the much of the district's eastern half. Officials are studying demographic information and expect to present boundary options to board members next fall, Allison said.
Another committee, appointed by school board members, will consider naming options for the two schools. The schools' principals, staff, colors and mascot will be decided later.
The last public high school built in the Wichita district was Northwest High, which opened in 1978.
