LANCASTER - With crowded classrooms of up to 40 kids per class, Lancaster schools are bursting at the seams.

Now, after three failed bond attempts, the district’s struggling to make ends meet.

The funding struggles began in May 2006, which was when the first bond package failed. Then, in November 2006, voters rejected a different proposal. It was the same result in May of last year.

The result has led area schools to get creative in order to fit all the students into classrooms.

At Elsie Robertson Middle School, a sharp whistle screeches in a bustling hallway.

“Thirty seconds, let’s go,’ said Coach Talisha Reliford to the thick crowd of kids hustling down the hallways.

The gym lobby is now used to relieve the hallways during the mid-class rush.

“The crowding situation, trying to get everybody moving through the crowd, has been an issue,” Reliford said.

The entire school district population is growing rapidly. Student numbers have swelled about 33 percent in the last five years.

More than 450 new "Tigers" have been added to classrooms in four of the last five years, with little new space for them to roam.

Portable classrooms have sprouted like weeds at Beltline Elementary.

Bigger problems appear to be on the horizon as more schools reach capacity.

“As we get to that point throughout the year, we will transfer, force transfer students from those campuses across town to the campuses where we have some space," said Phillip Pape, Lancaster Independent School District's maintenance and busing supervisor.

At the middle school, Principal Alphonso Bates has a difficult task ahead. His entire sixth grade class will be relocated this fall to a staff development building a block away.

“When you’re talking about students in the age bracket of 11 to 13, you would really love to have them on [the same] campus," he said.

LISD built a new high school with bond money in 2004. But since voters shot down three separate proposals since then, teachers and staff have had to make do with existing structures.

Another bond proposal may be introduced next year. But officials say until voters okay the spending, students will face more of the hallway hustle with teachers herding them into crowded classrooms.