Author Spotlight
Sydney Decker
The Shawnee Mission School District proposed a $263 million bond that will fund renovating and rebuilding district buildings and hiring more staff.
The goal of the bonds, as stated on the SMSD website, is to have the district continue “to be ranked among the finest school districts in the nation employing exceptional educators who work in state-of-the-art facilities where learners achieve their full potential.”
Residents of the district will be voting on a new property tax that would be implemented in order to cover the cost of the 2021 bond with Tuesday, Jan. 26 being the last day to send in a mail-in ballot to vote on the bonds.
If the bond is passed, it would result in an estimated annual $8 tax increase per $100,000 value in a home — meaning a homeowner would pay $24 more a year if their house was worth $300,000. Even with this increase, SMSD would remain the district with the lowest mill levy in Johnson County, according to the SMSD website.
The bonds would primarily go toward rebuilding elementary schools and renovating middle schools, high schools and other district buildings such as the Shawnee Mission Early Childhood Education Center and the Career and Tech Campus. The money would also be used for resolving mandatory maintenance issues such as Heating, ventilating, and air condition (HVAC) repairs and roof upgrades for all facilities.
While these improvements will benefit the students by modernizing their work environment, by providing more learning resources such as computer labs, most of the maintenance is purely out of necessity as the SMSD buildings age.
“Shawnee Mission, because of its age, has a number of buildings that are 50 years old or older,” Superintendent Michael Fulton said during a panel Q&A. “And so with that we always have a lot of routine maintenance repair that has to go on with our buildings.”
Along with facility improvements and construction, a portion of the bond money will go toward hiring secondary teachers to alleviate the current teacher workloads. The goal of this is to free up teachers’ time so they can better prepare more personalized learning plans for their students to get the most out of their education.
“It’s an exciting time and opportunity to meet the needs of our facilities, ongoing maintenance, to get new construction done — while also having a long term strategy… so teachers [will] have more time to work with students,” Fulton said. “[This will] help them put together their personalized learning plans that prepare them to be college and career ready and help them have the interpersonal skills that they need for life success.”
Last February, teachers and students protested, urging for a pay that fit the teacher workload after their demands for a five-hour daily class schedule were not met when contracts were renegotiated. If these bonds pass, they will be given a more manageable workload.
The bond would allow teachers to have a five class teaching schedule as soon as next year and East facility improvements beginning in about two years.
“By hiring additional teachers at the secondary level, it would allow the district to adjust teacher’s schedules to a five out of seven period school day,” East Principal Dr. Scott Sherman said. “This will allow teachers more time to work with students to enhance learning.”
Dr. Sherman urges parents and students who have met the voting age requirement of 18 to vote in approval of the proposed bonds. If passed, he says, they’ll allow a better learning environment for all students within the district, while simultaneously bettering the community as a whole.
“A strong public school system increases property value and gives our children greater education, opportunities and experiences,” Dr. Sherman said. “It is an investment in future success of the SME and SMSD students. It also allows us to recruit and employ the best teachers available and stay competitive with our neighboring district.”
More information about the voting process can be found at SMSD.org.
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