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USD 259 Special Board Meeting 06/27/2024
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USD 259 Special Board Meeting

Documenter name: Bill Hoag

Agency: None

Date: June 27, 2024

See more about this meeting at Documenters.org

  

 

Notes

This special meeting of the USD 259 Board of Education, which also functioned as the year-end meeting of the 2023-2024 calendar school year, was held to a large degree to provide further information on the Facility Master Plan for the district which was introduced at the School Board meeting of June 10th, 2024. This plan has received a variety of reactions.  The plan was further discussed at a workshop on June 20, incorporating feedback from the community provided during the workshop and from an online survey that was conducted during the interim period. The overall timeline of these events, along with further information on the details of the Recommended Facility Master Plan, as drafted by Cooperative Strategies, a consultant company specializing in school facility management affiliated with Ohio-based Woolpert. Implementation of Step 1 of the overall projected $2.1 billion plan would require bringing a bond measure of some $450 million before the voters in November, so public opinion regarding the proposal will clearly be of importance going forward.

Another major topic to be addressed was the proposed transfer of the former Park Elementary School at 1025 N. Main Street, one of six schools whose closures were announced earlier this year, to the City of Wichita, which hopes to convert the facility into a multi-agency resource center and shelter for the homeless in time for the coming winter freeze. This was a topic of considerable interest to several members of the Midtown community in attendance, two of whom I had the opportunity to chat with beforehand (they were both very friendly!)  and who then both spoke during the Public Communications section of the meeting.

Susan Willis, Chief Financial Officer of Wichita Public Schools, also provided a comprehensive budget report looking ahead to Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 (FY24-25); and, as a final matter, the BOE Meetings Calendar for the coming school year was approved.

 The Meeting:

The meeting was held on June 27, 2024, at the Alvin E. Morris Educational Center at 903 S. Edgemoor. It was brought to order by Board President Stan Reeser at noon promptly, and adjourned at 3:39 pm. All board members were present, namely, in addition to Reeser of District 4: Melody McCray-Miller, at-large; VP Diane Albert, District 1; Julie Hedrick, District 2; Ngoc Vuong, District 3; Kathy Bond, District 5; and Hazel Stabler, District 6. For this meeting, Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld was also seated at the Board table along with the members of the Board.

Some 75 people were in attendance to begin with, including a group of people who appeared to be journalists and/or other professionals seated at tables with their laptops to the east of the Board table, along with members of the public seated at chairs facing the Board table on the south side of the room, which was spacious enough to have comfortably accommodated a greater audience. By the end of the meeting, some 25 spectators remained.

After roll call, the meeting proceeded directly to:

II. Public Communications

Seven members of the public spoke at this time, each limited to three minutes. Six spoke on the topic of Park Elementary, while one spoke about the Facility Master Plan (two of these same members of the public returned to the podium to discuss the Facility Master Plan later in the meeting). While each of the six speakers who spoke about Park Elementary made it clear they were in favor of helping homeless people in general, each according to their own reasoning spoke out against doing so in their former neighborhood school building.

  1. Melinda Rocha expressed concerns about safety in her community, especially for neighborhood children at play, pointing out that of the 250 beds to be located in the proposed homeless shelter, not one bed would serve a child.
  2. Melinda’s husband, Greg Rocha, echoed her safety concerns, adding that property values were a concern also.
  3. Aaron Andrews spoke about the Facility Master Plan, pointing out the difficulties that the closing of neighborhood schools would pose for working-class parents like himself who are already struggling to balance their work lives with getting their children to and from school.
  4. Charles Cullen, midtown resident of 35 years, spoke of his love for his community and his long-time fondness for his neighborhood school, Park Elementary, with its admirable architecture, a building dating back to 1921. He argued that the building doesn’t belong to USD 259 but to the taxpayers who paid for it, and should be sold at fair market value to generate revenue to benefit the students rather than to the City of Wichita for a mere $1.
  5. Patricia Hileman recognized the importance of planning now for the needs of the homeless this winter, but also called for empathy for her neighbors who already “carry a lot of water” for the homeless, as there are already 30 service providers for the homeless in her area, including the Lord’s Diner, the jail within walking distance, and others.
  6. Former Park Elementary student Bobby Harlan expressed his sadness at the loss of his neighborhood school and said he would like to see it reopened again as a school or something else other than a homeless shelter.
  7. Makayla Welch, president of the Historic Midtown Citizens Association, expressed her concern that the transfer of the facility would undermine much of the progress her group has been making towards revitalizing Midtown and attracting new residents, who might now be reluctant to move into an area where the neighborhood school is now a homeless shelter.

III. Consent

All items on the consent agenda were routinely passed save 3 items pulled for discussion by Kathy Bond: Items B7, D5, and D6, quickly identified below:

B7: Regarding the sale of former Field Elementary School, 3006 W St Louis Street, to River Knox Holdings, LLC, for $325,000.

D5: Resolution to declare former Park Elementary School surplus.

D6: Option Regarding 1025 North Main Street (i.e. Park Elementary).

Bond expressed her desire to discuss all three items together. The passing of items D5 and D6 would in effect authorize the transfer of Park Elementary to the City of Wichita for the purchase price of $1, pending a period of due diligence on the part of the city for evaluation of the suitability of the property, and provided also that the State of Kansas not exercise its right of first refusal to purchase the property itself.

Bond said she was having a hard time reconciling “a disconnect” between selling one school building for $325,000 as opposed to selling another for $1. She later added that she did not like the way this whole process was being handled. Superintendent Bielefeld replied that Field Elementary was being sold to a private entity for money, while Park Elementary was not being sold but rather transferred to another government entity.

Motions to approve items B7 and D5 were then seconded and unanimously approved, after which further discussion of item D6, with its sticking point of the “sale” or “transfer” of Park Elementary for $1, was held. Diane Albert noted that during discussion with community members the point was made that both the BOE and the City of Wichita were government entities funded by the same taxpayers, and a transfer in that context was fiscally responsible, a point later echoed by McCray-Miller, who argued that it would make no sense to ask the same taxpayers to buy from themselves a school that they had already paid for. McCray-Miller also said that while she understood that there are neighborhood feelings about the loss of an adored local school, that overall, “we are doing this for the public good.”

A motion to approve item D6 was then seconded and passed 6-1, with Bond voting against it.

IV. Finance

  1. Budget Report

Chief Financial Officer, Susan Willis then gave a comprehensive budget report looking ahead to the coming school year. The district has a schedule of deadlines to meet before delivering its final budget to the KSDE as well as to the County Clerk and other government authorities for the determination of tax rates for 2024. Like many school districts around the country, ours is having to make allowances owing to the loss of federal Covid funds, but my (rather uninformed) impression is that our district has been navigating these adjustments pretty well. The City of Houston, for example, had to make massive budget cuts due to the end of pandemic stimulus funding coupled with enrollment losses, among other factors.

V. Operations

  1. District Finance and Facilities Master Plan

The discussion here began with two of the speakers from the community who previously spoke about Park Elementary. Patricia Hileman returned to express her concerns about the Facility Master Plan. She pointed out that we have many beautiful old buildings that serve as small neighborhood schools, and asked why we would be building new ones rather than preserving the old ones during a time of declining enrollment. She also expressed her belief that the old buildings were built much better, and alluded to the European mindset that “the old is not ugly.” Makayla Welch of the Historic Midtown Citizens Association also reiterated her belief in the value of neighborhood schools.

Superintendent Bielefeld addressed the citizens’ concerns, saying that he would love to have a small neighborhood school every mile if they could afford it. And he pointed out that Midtown would be getting a newly rebuilt Irving Elementary School according to the master plan, and insisted that WPS leaders do listen to the public.

Chief Financial Officer Susan Willis then returned to give an extensive presentation on bond financing, accompanied by 30 slides to illustrate important points, her goal for the day being to provide information. The Board members later agreed that it was a lot to take in and would require ongoing discussions for further processing.

Willis began by explaining the difference between Capital Outlay Funds for annual expenditures versus Bond and Interest Funds for long-term financing of major projects and to keep up with deferred maintenance expenses (a perpetual challenge, especially as buildings age). All school boards around the country have found the issuing of school bonds to be a necessity for the maintenance of school districts. Wichita’s most recent bond issues were in 2000 and 2008. One slide showed that almost all the other school districts in our immediate region have issued bonds more recently, and now would be an opportune time to layer on another bond while maintaining current tax mill levy rates as they are. In other words, there would be in effect no tax hike, although taxpayers will continue to find themselves writing bigger checks every year as the appraised values of their homes continue to increase. Willis and the speakers who followed all emphasized the importance of going forward with the plan for the future-readiness of the school district, which has demonstrable needs.

David Sturtz of Cooperative Strategies, who spoke at length at the June 10th meeting, returned to discuss the results of the June community survey. One obstacle: many community members found it hard to believe that a bond of such size would not result in higher taxes for them and provide additional insights, followed by WPS Director of Facilities Luke Newman. Newman said that after the workshop and survey they still believed the plan as previously introduced was the best path going forward, but that one adjustment had been made after considering community feedback, and it had been decided that it would be best to leave the Dunlap students where they are rather than move them to Bryant. He also showed a “project phasing slide” that illustrated how not all these projects would be done at once but gradually over the years 2025-2030, in a way that he said would be “very manageable” and “doable.”

The topic was then opened up for the Board members to discuss. Kathy Bond expressed the most skepticism, saying that she’s not convinced on the bond issue. Hedrick pointed out that if they don’t pass a bond, they would still have to consolidate some schools, and she wants to be able to do this the right way. She also expressed her pride at being on the Board during a period of time when teachers are getting well-deserved raises, unlike during those dark years surrounding the 2008 recession when she herself was teaching in the district. Reeser added that deferred maintenance does not go away, and noted that they would be closing very few traditional neighborhood schools and did recognize their value. In response to a question from Stabler, it was explained that deferred maintenance is a rolling number and there is no way to precisely predict the amount of future needs. McCray-Miller expressed the desire to understand exactly what would be the return on investment (ROI) for taxpayers from all of this. And Albert said that doing nothing is not an option; the only question is how to do this well. Bond asked if they were then going to have to keep asking for more bonds in the future. The answer to that question being “yes,” she remarked that that was “disturbing.” She said she was having a hard time swallowing the whole bond issue, but if public feedback tells her to go for it, that’s what she will do.

And with that, as there was nothing to vote on regarding the Facility Master Plan at this time, the Board went on to approve next year’s meeting calendar by a vote of 6-0 (Hedrick having disappeared), and the meeting was adjourned at 3:39 pm.

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If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@citybureau.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line.