When visitors come into New Stanley Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas, Principal Luis Arres feels embarrassed, as if he didn’t clean up for houseguests.
Vacuums, brooms, shelves of stacked copy paper, even a ladder clutter the hallways. But there’s nowhere else to store those items in the 101-year-old school.
There’s not enough room for the students either.
Fifth graders and the music room fill three buildings that stand apart from the main school. Children brave the weather when they move between buildings, and Arres worries about how isolated they would be in an emergency.
The main building has only one set of student restrooms. Classrooms are small. The cafeteria doubles as a gym — creating schedule constraints — and as a meeting room for teachers left to sit in child-sized backless seats.
About a mile away, parts of Argentine Middle School are prone to flooding. Bathroom floors look filthy with permanent stains, and one restroom has a persistent, overwhelming sewer stench.
District leaders want to replace both schools within the next five years.
But that plan requires that voters approve a $420 million bond on May 7, one that will raise their property taxes for the next 30 years.
The bond would pay to consolidate six elementary schools into three schools and replace Argentine and Central middle schools.
It would also increase early childhood education capacity, build a new aquatic center, add classrooms or gyms to several schools and fund smaller renovations and maintenance projects.
The projects represent community requests and would create better conditions for students to learn, Superintendent Anna Stubblefield said.
But some residents view the plea for higher taxes skeptically, arguing that the district — which lost, then regained, full accreditation during the past year — needs to focus on improving its academics and hasn’t made the case that new buildings would help.
“So far the prevailing message from the school district has been, ‘The children deserve new schools,’” said Pamela Penn-Hicks, co-founder of the Wyco Community Benefit Collaboration. “That’s not enough.”
Why school bonds?
A bond gives a school district permission to borrow money and pay it off with property taxes.
In Kansas, school bonds can be used to purchase land, finance building-related projects and buy buses.
They’re a popular way to finance big construction projects, such as new buildings, that wouldn’t otherwise fit into the district’s budget.
How would this money be spent?
More than half of the funds would be used for new schools: replacing two middle schools and consolidating six elementary schools into three new buildings.
More than a quarter of the money would cover a long list of smaller deferred maintenance and renovation projects, including upgrades to auditoriums, athletic facilities, playgrounds, special education, accessibility and technology.
Other projects include:
- $20 million for expanding the district’s capacity to offer early childhood education.
- Up to $20 million to cover part of the cost of a new main public library. The KCKPS school board administers the public library system in Kansas City, Kansas.
- Nearly $18 million to add classrooms and gyms to several schools.
- $15 million to build a new district aquatic center.
Which schools would be replaced?
Elementary schools:
- Emerson and New Stanley elementary schools would be combined into a new school built on the Emerson site. The Emerson building would be demolished while the New Stanley building could be used for another purpose or demolished later.
- Silver City and Noble Prentis elementary schools would be combined into a new school built on the Noble Prentis site. The old Noble Prentis building would be demolished after the new school is built. The Silver City site would be used for the new Argentine Middle School.
- Lindbergh and Eugene Ware elementary schools would be combined into a new school built on the Eugene Ware site. The old Eugene Ware would be demolished after the new school is built, while the Lindbergh building could be used for another purpose or demolished later.
Middle schools:
- A new Argentine Middle School would be built on the former Silver City Elementary School site after the Silver City building is demolished. The old Argentine could be used for another purpose or demolished later.
- A new Central Middle School would be built on a new site, location to be determined.
Why these projects?
Stubblefield said community members had asked for the projects in discussions about previous bonds and the district’s facilities plan.
The board approved the facilities plan in December and the bond resolution in January.
Age of the buildings was also a factor. The middle schools that would close have an average age of 102 years, and the elementary schools an average age of 72 years.
The two oldest schools in the district, Central Middle School (109 years old) and New Stanley Elementary School (101 years old), would close.
The projects also target schools that are using modular classrooms that are not attached to the main building. Some of the schools would be replaced while others would have classrooms added.
If the school I care about isn’t being replaced, would it see any benefits from the KCKPS bond?
Unless your school is very new, the bond would fund some improvements.
That could range from just one item — most schools would at least receive furniture and technology upgrades — to a long list of projects.
For example, Washington High School’s list includes upgrades to indoor and outdoor athletics facilities, auditorium renovations, pool updates, accessibility improvements and half a dozen deferred maintenance projects such as roofing and electrical updates.
Whittier Elementary School and M.E. Pearson Elementary School would have classrooms added. F.L. Schlagle High School and J.C. Harmon High School would have gyms added.
Carl B. Bruce Middle School, Gloria Willis Middle School, Welborn Elementary School, West Park Elementary School and Lowell Brune Elementary School were built in 2019 or later and wouldn’t receive any upgrades.
Frank Rushton Elementary was built in 2012 and would only see some landscaping and paving work.
You can see a detailed list here by scrolling to “proposed improvements for individual schools and buildings” and expanding the lists for each type of school.
Is the list of projects set in stone?
The district is committed to completing the projects as listed and expects they’d be done in about five years, Stubblefield said.
In estimating how much projects will cost, KCKPS takes projected inflation into account, she said.
That calculation can be thrown off if there’s a major unexpected event such as the pandemic, when work disruptions and materials shortages caused building costs to skyrocket. Stubblefield said it doubled the cost of building an elementary school.
Stubblefield said it’s more common to come in under budget and have funds to add some small projects, such as when an elevator at Washington High School was added to the 2016 bond.
How much would my taxes go up?
Property taxes would go up by 8.5 mills. That means for every $1,000 of the assessed value of your property, you’d pay $8.50 in additional taxes.
Determining your assessed value is a little complicated. You have to know how much the Unified Government thinks your property is worth — which could be different than what it would actually sell for — and take a percentage of that number based on your property type. The percentage for residences is 11.5%. Then you factor in the mill levy.
According to KCKPS — and confirmed by The Beacon’s calculations — a homeowner whose residence is appraised at $100,000 would pay $97.75 in additional property taxes for the next 30 years. A $200,000 home would pay an added $195.50 a year.
KCKPS says the U.S. Census median home value in Kansas City, Kansas, is about $112,500.
How much am I already paying in taxes to the school district?
The current mill levy for the school district is nearly 50 mills.
Eight mills are for capital outlay — spending on buildings and physical property. Approximately 9 mills go toward paying off past bonds. The rest goes toward the district’s general fund.
Why is the KCKPS bond focused on buildings rather than academics?
In Kansas school budgets, funding for capital projects — those related to buildings and land — is separate from the rest of district finances. Stubblefield described it as drawing from two different buckets of funding.
State law puts constraints on how districts raise money to fill those buckets.
A bond can’t pay for things like teacher salaries and curriculum.
And if the district wanted to raise more money for its general fund instead of passing a bond, there wouldn’t be a way to do that.
The tax levy for the general fund is set by the state, and KCKPS has already maxed out the supplemental general fund levy it is allowed to add.
That means building expenses aren’t in competition with the district’s other costs.
Do new buildings improve academic achievement?
Research shows a connection between certain building improvements — especially fixing infrastructure like heating and air conditioning, roofs, plumbing and furnaces — and higher achievement. Bigger classrooms and new athletic facilities have less of an impact on academics but improve property values.
The small number of new buildings in the district and the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic right after they were built make it hard to see whether that has borne out in KCKPS, Stubblefield said.
But she’s concerned that poor conditions in some buildings can distract students from learning, such as when they’re more concerned with warming up after a walk to a detached classroom.
Older schools have lost out on grants for classroom furniture and equipment, such as one for a “medical detective lab” that the newer Carl B. Bruce did receive, because they don’t have the baseline conditions needed to hold the class, Stubblefield said.
Some older buildings, like Argentine, have a shortage of electrical outlets that students need for tech-focused classes. Meanwhile, classrooms in the newly-built Carl B. Bruce have them at every table.
What happens if the KCKPS bond doesn’t pass?
If the bond doesn’t pass, KCKPS would have to put many of its plans on hold and focus on small, urgent projects as it can afford them, Stubblefield said.
Since the bond is roughly equivalent to the district’s annual budget, there wouldn’t be a realistic backup plan for the district to get that much money, she said.
“It doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t come back to the table with (a new bond proposal) if that is something that the community or the board desires,” she said. But “the longer you delay things, it’s gonna cost more.”
Penn-Hicks said she’d be open to a different bond proposal, but thinks there should be more discussion with the community about priorities and what projects are truly necessary.
She’d also like to explore whether there are other ways to fund some building improvements.
“We may have to tear it apart a little bit in order to put it back together, but the timing and the amount, I think, is not right,” she said. “That does not preclude that there may be a necessity for a bond in the future, and maybe the near future.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon Kansas City, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
