Gorham school officials could ask residents at the polls to borrow an estimated $4.8 million to fund five projects at Gorham High School.

The Gorham School Committee voted 7-0 on Wednesday to request that the Town Council add a referendum question on the bonds to the November 2026 ballot.

The costliest part of the bond would mean borrowing an estimated $3 million to replace two portable structures that contain four classrooms on the high school campus. The structures were intended to last for 15 years, but have been in use for about 35, leading to safety and heating issues, said Superintendent Heather Perry. The replacement represents an adjustment to the ongoing project of adding six new modular classrooms in total, which the Town Council approved last year.

If the referendum is approved and passed by voters, Great Falls Construction would begin work in the spring of 2027 and would likely oblige the school to construct two temporary modulars in its parking lot to accommodate students until the reconstruction is finished in the fall of 2028, said Perry. The high school’s current student population is 850, which will grow to 870 this fall, a projected 902 in the fall of 2027 and then 917 in the fall of 2028, reaching the highest enrollment ever.

The bond would also mean borrowing $763,000 for parking lot paving, drainage adjustments and sidewalk repairs for ADA accommodations.

“Please know that that is more than a paving project,” Perry told the school committee. “This has much more to do with the drainage issues and the ADA issues that exist because of the drainage issues and other things that are on the site. We do have a student with a wheelchair on the site.”

The other requests are to borrow $405,628 to replace the school’s windows, $393,974 for exterior door replacements and $280,914 for brick veneer work.

Based on findings from a report by the architecture firm Lavallee Brensiger, the school committee anticipates requesting a bond referendum in 2030 for approximately $10.5 million and $12.2 million in 2032 to continue to improve the school system’s capital.

“All of these items are coming from previous requests that we’ve not been able to find a way to do, or coming directly from the CHA or the (2026 Project Lavallee Brensiger) facility studies,” Perry told the town’s capital improvements committee in May.

The Town Council will vote in August on whether to add the bond referendum to the November ballot.