Pelham voters will weigh in on three warrant articles in March pertaining to the school district’s pursuit of a four-school model for Pelham, which would include kindergarten and a new high school.

With the four-school model in place, Pelham Elementary would include kindergarten through fourth grade, Memorial would house fifth and sixth grades, seventh- and eighthgraders would move to the current high school building and grades 9 through 12 would be in the new school.

Article 2 would allow the school district to purchase a 48- acre parcel of land on Windham Road for the proposed 178,000 square-foot school through a $3 million five-year bond, further asking voters to fund the first year’s interest amounting to $78,000.

Voters must also decide on a $44.6 million bond for the proposed new school’s building and furnishing costs and renovations to the current Pelham High School to make that school into a middle school. Taxpayers would also be asked to fund the $1.4 million first-year interest payment on the bond, which would be paid over 25 years. If the land purchase doesn’t pass, Article 3 becomes void.

The funding for a 20,000- square-foot auditorium for the new school requested in Article 4, which asks voters to enter into a $3.1 million bond and to raise $81,016 through taxes to pay for the first year’s interest on the five-year bond. This funding is contingent on the passing of Article 3.

The passage of these three warrant articles would raise the tax rate by a total of 93 cents per $1,000 of assessed value during the first year of the bond payments, an extra $300.46 on the tax bills of Pelham residents owning median value homes of $362,000.

The heftiest tax burden would fall in year two of the bond payments, raising the tax rate by $2.76 per $1,000 of assessed value. In that year, Pelham residents owning a home worth $362,000 would see an extra $767.44 on their tax bills.

Should voters pass all articles, including the $24 million proposed 2008-09 operating budget, the tax rate would increase to $10.16 per $1,000 of assessed value, up from the current year’s $8.85 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Superintendent Frank Bass said the state’s legislation requiring Pelham to institute public kindergarten, projected jumps in enrollment and safety issues at the current high school prompted school officials to look at the possibility of a new high school.

The Pelham, Windham and Salem school districts, being part of the 11 districts throughout the state directly affected by state legislation mandating public kindergarten, are shooting to implement a kindergarten program by September 2009, leaving time to pursue the new school.

“If all three of these warrant articles pass, we will be well on our way to the four-school model,” Bass said. “It’s just a question of whether voters think this is the time.”

Last year, Pelham voters authorized the Pelham School Board to hire and pay Marinace Architects, a New Hampton architectural firm specializing in school architecture, to design the plans and come up with cost estimates. Marinace Architects is the firm working on renovations at Salem High School.

The renovations to the current high school, which Bass said is overcrowded, include bringing it up to safety and health codes as well as outfitting the building for a middle school student body.

According to several enrollment studies conducted by the New England School Development Council and the New Hampshire School Boards Association, projected enrollment figures show a sharp increase within the decade.

Figures updated in 2006 project enrollment in all 10 grades within the Pelham school district would jump by more than 20 percent, or 440 students, by 2014.

Enrollment figures projected for the schools show a 16 percent increase in the population at Pelham Elementary, 27 percent increase at Memorial and a 20 percent increase at the high school over the decade.

Enrollment data shows that while the elementary school could squeeze in a few more students without going over their capacity, the middle and high schools are both over capacity already.