Your questions answered: What to know about $450M school bond issue in front of voters
Voters in the Wichita school district have a big decision on Tuesday: whether to approve a $450 million bond issue to modernize schools.
The bond issue would pay to rebuild seven elementary and middle schools, close four elementary schools, convert two elementary schools to K-8 buildings and consolidate alternative school programs, among a number of other items.
We asked Eagle readers what they wanted to know about the bond issue. Here are the most commonly asked questions and answers.
What is proposed?
The district would demolish and rebuild seven buildings, build a new early childhood center, new outdoor athletic fields at Northeast Magnet High School and a new Future Ready Center for Trades at East High School. Two elementary schools would be converted to K-8 schools, and four elementary schools would close.
The elementary schools set to close as part of the plan are L’Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley and Woodland.
Most of those students would be moved to newer schools that were built in the early 2010s or are being rebuilt as part of the bond proposals, according to documents from the school district.
The district is consolidating its alternative learning programs: Wells Alternative Middle School would be expanded to a 6-12 school that includes Sowers Alternative High School. Chester Lewis Academic Learning Center and the Gateway Alternative Program would close in their current buildings and move to the current Coleman Middle School building or other buildings.
Two administration buildings are closing. Some programs at Dunbar Support Center-Multilingual Education Services and Focht Instructional Support Center would also relocate to Coleman.
The Little Early Childhood Center would be rebuilt on the former site of the Chester Lewis Academic Center near 17th and Hillside.
Cessna and Isely elementary schools would be converted to have students from kindergarten through eighth grade.
A third Future Ready Center near East High is part of the plans, with the center focusing on construction trades.
“So this Future Ready Center… would train kids for plumbing, HVAC, electrical and energy,” Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said. “They would have different tracks that they could take in order to be certified and ready to go right out of high school in those fields.”
The district also would construct athletic fields at Northeast High School.
How would the bond issue affect property taxes?
Homeowners now have a 7.5 mill property tax rate to pay off debt from 2008 bonds. That rate would continue until at least 2045 if the new bond issue is approved.
If voters reject it, the mill levy is expected to end in four years.
The 7.5 mills amounts to $86.25 a year for each $100,000 of a property’s appraised value, $172.50 a year for a $200,000 property.
Who can vote in the election?
Any registered voter who lives in the Wichita school district boundaries can vote on the bond issue.
When will the four elementary schools be closed?
The district is planning to close four elementary schools: L’Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley and Woodland.
Woodland and Pleasant Valley could be closed by 2028 while L’Ouverture and OK could be closed by the end of the decade, according to Wichita Public Schools’ master plan.
The district says they plan on closing the schools no matter if the bond issue passes or not.
What schools will be rebuilt?
Seven schools will be rebuilt if the bond issue is passed: Adams, Black, Caldwell, Irving and McLean elementaries and Coleman and Truesdell middle schools
The rebuilds are expected to cost $287.5 million, according to data provided by the school district.
The district said those schools were chosen to be rebuilt because they have small classrooms, leaky roofs and foundations, safety and accessibility issues and other problems.
What will happen with alternative school programs?
If the bond issue passes, many of the district’s alternative school programs will be moved to the current Coleman Middle School building. After Coleman is rebuilt nearby, the district plans to renovate the current building at a cost of $1 million to accommodate some of those programs, including the Chester Lewis Academic Center.
How will class sizes be affected by the changes?
The bond issue “shouldn’t have much of an impact” on student-teacher ratios, according to district spokesperson Susan Arensman.
If the bond passes, students will move into bigger schools once they’re rebuilt, likely with the same class sizes.
If the bond does not pass, the district says it plans on still closing schools, but spreading those students out to more schools than the ones planned.
How will transportation for students be handled with fewer schools? Will bus routes be longer?
Students who live 2.5 miles away or more from their school are eligible to use the bus. According to the Wichita Public Schools’ website, about 35% of students qualify.
The school district’s spokesperson said that it’s too early to know exactly what the changes would mean for transportation and bus routes, but that the district does not expect major changes. They also do not expect a big impact for families with limited transportation.
How much money goes to the new athletic fields? Why were the Northeast fields deferred from the earlier bond issue?
The district says it plans to spend $4 million on the construction of athletic fields at Northeast Magnet. Students at the school now have to go to other schools to play sports, but new facilities will allow them to play at Northeast. The district said the new athletic facilities will include a turf field and track, but not a stadium.
Some projects, such as the Northeast athletic fields, were put on hold or canceled in 2011 after state budget cuts for public schools. USD 259 Director of Facilities Luke Newman said the athletic fields for Northeast were packaged into this bond issue to fulfill promises made to residents in that area during the 2008 bond issue.
What happens if voters reject the bond issue?
The district has not said much about what will happen if voters reject the bond issue. District officials have said they still plan to close several schools, without or without the rebuilding of other schools.
Has the district considered scaling back the scope of the projects with a less lengthy commitment?
Some school board members initially pushed back on the size of the district’s facility master plan, but the district contends that it needs to move forward with the plan before its deferred maintenance needs continue to grow.
If this bond passes, how would it affect the $1.2 billion in deferred maintenance?
At its most recent school board meeting, WPS Director of Facilities Luke Newman said approval of the bond issue would allow the district to offset $464 million in deferred maintenance by closing schools and consolidating others in its facilities master plan. The school district has also said that if the bond issue fails and the district cannot address deferred maintenance issues, they will continue to grow.
What plans would the district have for Columbine Park?
While the deal hasn’t been finalized yet, officials said in August that they were in talks with the city of Wichita to obtain Columbine Park next door to McLean Elementary in a trade for other land in order to rebuild McLean without disrupting student learning.
What projects promised in the 2008 bond issue were not completed?
Voters approved building two new comprehensive 800-student high schools in northeast and southeast regions of the city to help ease overcrowding issues at Heights, Southeast and North. They didn’t know that the two new schools would replace the existing Northeast Magnet, which does not have open enrollment, and Southeast High School. Both were slated to receive upgrades from the bond issue but were ultimately closed when the new schools came online.
A K-8 school planned for Bel Aire – which is now Isely Traditional Magnet Elementary School – opened as a K-5 school instead (the district plans to expand it to a K-8 in the 2025 bond issue).
The district also closed several schools after the bond issue passed. Metro-Midtown closed at the end of the 2010 school year. Blackbear Bosin Academy closed in 2011. Bryant, Lincoln and Emerson elementary schools closed in 2012-2013. Metro-Meridian closed at the end of the 2016 school year. Riverside Academy closed in 2014-2015. Dunbar closed as an alternative school but remained an administrative center in 2015-2016. The school closures were not included on the ballot or in the district’s building plan.
When the 2008 bond issue was passed, enrollment in the district was at a 34-year high. What is enrollment now, and what is projected?
Wichita school district enrollment during the 2008-09 school year was 48,914 students, according to statistics from the Kansas Department of Education.
Enrollment then peaked at 50,988 students during the 2015-16 school year, according to an analysis of 33 years worth of headcount enrollment data available on the KDOE’s website.
Wichita Public Schools says it lost 4,494 students between the 2014-15 and 2023-24 school years, an average of 450 students annually. It expects the declines to continue at a similar rate, about 480 students per year for the next decade, according to the district’s facilities master plan.
This past fall, enrollment sat at 46,154 students — 9.5% less than the 2015-16 school year, according to the data.
Overall student enrollment in every grade in elementary and middle school, excluding preschool, is down compared to 10 years ago, with the largest drops in kindergarten, first and second grades, an analysis of the data shows.
