The Lakeland Schools system is considering a plan to build a new $20 million middle school on the 94 acres of land the school system had looked at earlier this year as the site for a $50 million grades 6-12 school.

The new plan was recommended to the Lakeland school board Monday, June 1, by Southern Educational Strategies LLC.

The plan follows an April referendum in Lakeland in which voters rejected a $50 million bond issue that would have financed school construction for Lakeland Prep, the grades 6-12 school.

Citizens in the city forced the referendum after Lakeland’s board of commissioners endorsed as a preliminary step a 55-cent property tax hike to pay the bond debt.

After the bond issue’s defeat, Lakeland Mayor Wyatt Bunker said a middle school was a possible next move, although not an ideal one.

Lakeland’s school system consists of Lakeland Elementary School with middle and high school-aged students living in Lakeland attending schools in the Bartlett and Arlington school systems by agreement.

The Lakeland school board took no action Monday evening on the consultant’s report.

Three of the six suburban school districts that began operations this past August, including Lakeland, are exploring new school construction.

Last week, Germantown school board members reviewed options that include a new elementary school and a possible middle school expansion of some kind.

Germantown superintendent Jason Manuel said he hopes to have some kind of consensus on a more specific proposal by the end of the summer to take to the Germantown Mayor and Board of Aldermen for a vote on funding and would like to break ground on the plan by the end of the 2015-2016 school year.

Collierville schools officials, meanwhile, are pursuing the construction of a single comprehensive high school for their school system and have backing from the Collierville Chamber of Commerce so far in that summer campaign.