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CEDAR RAPIDS — The refrain of advocates for Cedar Rapids schools multimillion dollar school bond referendum Tuesday night as election results trickled in was “unofficial results.”

Unofficial results show the $117 million referendum narrowly failing by less than 1 percent — fewer than 200 votes short of approval. The referendum received just over 59 percent approval but requires a supermajority of 60 percent to pass.

“We’re going to keep coming back,” Superintendent Tawana Grover said at a press conference Tuesday night. “We need our schools to be safe and secure, we need accessibility, we need modern learning environments. With the efforts that you showed, we know you believe that too.”

The

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