Kansas City Public Schools will ask voters in April to approve more than $400 million bond to fund long-standing maintenance needs. The school district hasn’t successfully passed a bond in nearly 60 years.
Four out of every seven voters have to approve the measure for it to pass.
The district’s board of education shared its proposal on Wednesday for a 10-year capital funding plan focused on improving facilities and student learning. KCPS is the only Missouri school district in the region without tax revenue for improving and constructing new buildings.
Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Collier said students learn better in more supportive environments.
“Now is the time to invest in Kansas City's children,” Collier said. “As we look to move into this phase where we have a world class city, we know it's important also to have a world class school district.”
The financial move is the next step of Blueprint 2030, the district’s long-term strategic plan to expand student opportunities like foreign language classes, instrumental music, science labs, elective courses, project-based learning and field trips.
The district decided to close two schools last year in order to implement some of those academic goals, scaling back an initial proposal to close 10 schools. The first phase of the 10-year plan would allow the district to update its aging buildings and build modern learning environments.
What is a general obligation bond?
A general obligation bond is the primary way school districts fund improvements and repairs to buildings. School districts have to ask property owners for permission to borrow money since their property taxes cover the principal and interest payment.
The state does not provide funding to schools for capital projects, and limits how much of their operational funds districts can spend on capital projects each year. KCPS hasn’t passed a bond measure since 1967, making it the only Missouri school district in the region without that voter-approved funding source.
“You can imagine what that means in terms of our deferred maintenance, the state of our buildings,” Collier said.
The district also hasn’t had a tax levy increase since 1998, when securing one required an amendment to the state constitution. The district funds its operating costs, building projects and debt service payments out of a levy set 25 years ago.
Other Kansas City area school districts regularly receive voter support to raise levies or issue bonds to increase teacher pay or pay for new buildings.
How much would a bond cost taxpayers?
KCPS would receive $424 million. Up to $50 million of the funding would go to charter schools. Eight of the 20 charters that KCPS sponsors or contracts with have expressed interest in participating in the April bond and identified more than $168 million in facility needs.
The charter schools and KCPS plan to finalize an agreement in October, and charters are prioritizing up to $50 million in facility needs.
The district would also ask its board of education to approve a $100 million certificate of participation bond, a loan that the district will pay back over time. Collier said the district has used this measure to make updates to its middle schools in recent years, but it wouldn’t cover all the deferred maintenance needs.
In total, the district would have $524 million for its 10-year capital funding plan. By passing a general bond, district leaders said they’d have a sustainable source for building investments and a path to ask for bonds that would not increase taxes in the future.
A taxpayer with a $200,000 home within KCPS’s boundaries would pay about 64 cents a day, or $231.80 a year according to the district. The district's median home value is $180,000.
The district will also create an independent oversight committee to ensure it only spends bond funds on items included in the ballot language. The committee will also provide an annual report of its fundings.
Why does KCPS say it needs higher taxes?
The district said its buildings have accrued more than $650 million in deferred maintenance. It would prioritize updating roofs, building insulation, electrical systems, air conditioning and plumbing.
Collier said when students visit other school districts with state of the art buildings, they wonder why their schools don’t look the same. She said that sends “unintentional messages” to children and impacts the way they view themselves.
“We want to eliminate that. We want to level the playing field,” Collier said. “We want our kids to know they're important, they're worthy, and they have the same kind of spaces and learning environments as other children that they're interfacing with each and every day.”
The district ended classes early during a heatwave last August because many of its high schools don't have air conditioning units in all classrooms. The district has since allocated $32 million to ensure that every classroom has some type of air conditioning by the start of classes on August 19.
The district funded upgrades with federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. That funding source is temporary, and schools must allocate all of that money by September 30.
How did the school district decide where to spend money?
The district reviewed its facility conditions to create building assessment scores, looking at the physical structure of buildings including HVAC and boiler systems, plumbing, electrical, roofing and windows.
The districtwide building condition score sits at 5.99 out of 10 points. Pre-Kindergarten rated the lowest with a score of 5.55. The district wants to use the initial bond money to raise conditions to an 8.
It also reviewed its learning environments to measure if classroom areas have adequate resources and space, including safety and security measures, and the quality of indoor and outdoor learning experiences.
The districtwide learning environment score sits at 1.88 out of 4 points, with pre-Kindergarten again rated the lowest with a score of 1.45. The district hopes to raise conditions to a score of 3.2 points with the bond funding.
The district needs an additional $600 million to improve teaching and learning environments to those benchmarks, bringing the cost of the district’s total needs to $1.25 billion.
How will KCPS spend higher taxes?
For the past seven months, the district has held conversations with students, teachers, parents and community stakeholders to develop a plan for what the district could look like. That outreach included more that 38,000 newsletters, 1,000 survey responses and 3,000 participants in engagement efforts.
It wants to invest in facilities across the district with lower building system and learning environment scores. It would also relocate schools and programs and build new facilities.
The district would transition to a 6th through 8th grade middle school structure. District leaders said the move would allow more specialized instruction and allow them to prioritize social-emotional learning.
Here’s how the plan breaks down:
Districtwide Investments – more than $64 million
- Tackling deferred maintenance with a focus on systems that keep schools warm, safe and dry, like HVAC, roofing and electrical.
- Improving learning environments
- School-specific projects the district will identify this fall with community help.
New construction – $136 million
The King Empowerment Campus K-5 elementary school, located on the site of the shuttered King Elementary School at 4301 Indiana Ave, would include wings for an Early Learning Center and a Family Empowerment Center.
When officials closed the school in 2014 and relocated students to a shared campus with Paseo Academy, district leaders told families that it would demolish the old building and rebuild one for students to return to.
“We want to start with this project and keep the promise that was made to that community,” Collier said.
Students from King Elementary, Richardson Early Learning Center and those in the special education program at Wheatley Elementary School would move to the new building. Collier said that would allow them to design a space centered for students with special needs, who are oftimes marginalized or forgotten.
Carlos Moreno/KCUR 89.3The Viking Pantry and Closet at Northeast High School offers food, clothing and other household needs to families whose children attend the school. A school bond would allow KCPS to build new elementary schools with family empowerment centers to serve the community. The family empowerment center would be a space for the community to access services like a food pantry, clothing closet and a potential laundromat. Collier said the district is also looking at including a dentist clinic or space for children to get physicals.
“Our children don't come to us in isolation. They come connected to families and they come connected to communities,” Collier said. “In order to make sure our students are prepared and have what they need, we want to make sure that those families also have what they need.”
- New Woodland Empowerment Campus, another K-5 elementary school at 711 Woodland Ave, would house the district’s Global Academy, Woodland Early Learning Center and Whittier Elementary currently located in buildings with low condition and environment scores. District leaders plan to engage with those communities to see what services are most important to house at their campus.
- The district said the new construction would save $79.5 million in costs to maintain and repair aging buildings.
Major Renovations – $104.8 to $135.4 million
- Possible construction of a new campus called South Middle School, site to be determined in November. The district is considering renovating the former Southwest High School or building new.
- Renovations to Northeast and Central middle schools to accommodate incoming sixth graders.
- Baseline improvements to district high schools, plus major renovations like adding a new competition gym at East High School, replacing deteriorating pods at Lincoln Preparatory Academy and relocating the cafeteria at Southeast from the fourth floor to the ground level. The district would need additional studies to see if the high school renovations are feasible during the first phase of investments.
Co-locations – $49 million
- Moving programs from buildings with low utilization and high maintenance needs to shared locations which the district says would save an estimated $133 million.
- Programs at the Manual Career Technical Education Center programs would move to Central High School, which district leaders said has the space for renovations and additions to support a modern CTE program.
- The Success Academy Alternative Programs would move to the Success Academy at Knotts, an alternative elementary school. The district said the plan includes renovations to separate the elementary and secondary programs.
Relocations – $62.4 million
- Moving five schools to buildings with better conditions, for an anticipated savings of $91.5 million.
- Students at Wheatley Elementary School will be reassigned to J.A. Rogers and Wendell Phillips elementary schools, which are newer and in better condition. Both schools would receive more funding to accommodate more students.
- George Washington Carver Dual Language School would move to a renovated building on the Paseo Academy campus to allow the program more room to expand and to feed into the Paseo Dual Language program.
- Students at George Melcher Elementary would move to the former Carver building, which is a newer building in better condition.
- The African-Centered College Preparatory Academy would move to the former Satchel Paige Elementary building, which was closed in 2016 to serve as a future district site. The district said its current building is older and oversized.
Will any schools close?
The school district faced contentious meetings and heated pushback from families when it previously proposed closing several schools to give its students the same programs and activities offered to students in suburban districts — and eventually scaled back that plan.
Collier said under this plan, only one school — Wheatley Elementary — would move completely out of a building that may not be in used in the future. She said the rest will move into new or renovated buildings.
She said she feels more confident about this process, because the district is adding, not just contracting.
“It really just felt like taking away, and trying to convince people why they should be okay with us taking away their school or their community,” Collier said. “We're able to actually give our students and our staff and our families something, something that they can look forward to, and something that's better, something that they deserve.”
Vacated buildings would enter the district’s repurposing process, where it will be considered for future use. Collier said enrollment has been increasing at elementary schools, so they’ll want to keep any remaining schools on their radar. However, she said the buildings’ poor condition means they’d need to consider whether to move people into them in the future.
What comes next?
The district’s next step will be to get feedback from students, families and community members to inform what their schools could look like.
Based on that feedback, the district will estimate costs and refine projects.
“We get to redesign the system, and so we're taking all of our schools with us on that journey,” Nicole Collier-White, the district’s chief communications and community engagement officer said.
The board of education will finalize the ballot language and adopt the 10-year plan at its November 20 meeting. District leaders will then focus on getting people registered to vote and using families, alumni and community ambassadors to spread the word.
It will hold school site meetings where people who live in the district’s boundaries but haven’t been its buildings recently can see the conditions.
The district will hold a Bond 101 workshop on August 22 where people can learn about the bond and walk through a gallery of project proposals and dashboards of schools’ current conditions. More of those events will happen leading up to the November board vote.
