District officials across the region are asking voters to approve school bond packages that would pay for modern door locks, additional surveillance cameras, shatter-resistant window film and other measures aimed at keeping children safer.
With security top of mind after the Uvalde massacre – in which 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary in Texas’ deadliest school shooting – it’s possible voters will be more willing to sign off.
“Superintendents and boards are wanting to do whatever they can to ensure the safety of students and staff,” said Kevin Brown, director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. “They’re going to be seeking funding in whatever ways are available to them. Bonds are one of those key ways.”
But votersrejected more than half of school bond proposals last November, an unusual move for taxpayers who don’t typically say no to so many school requests.
It’s possible divided Texas politics is playing some role. On Monday, state GOP chair Matt Rinaldi tweeted: “Don’t forget to get out and vote ‘No’ on the bond . . . wherever you are . . . and whatever bond that might be.” He did not respond to a request for comment.
In rapidly growing Little Elm, taxpayers narrowly voted against a nearly $400 million bond package on May 7 that would have helped build or expand several campuses.
District officials revamped their proposal for November, knocking off some new campuses and reducing the overall package by about $100 million. And they bolstered the campus security bundle.
Roughly $13 million would now go toward upgrading locks on classroom doors and installing a weapon detection system, among other safety measures.
In explanatory mailers the district is sending to voters, “Safety & Security” is listed at the top.
The proposed upgrades had been under discussion, but Uvalde put the plan in a new light, said Dan Blackwood, a former trustee now leading an effort to pass the bond.
“It is so top of mind,” he said. “If the district can do something to alleviate those concerns, it should be something the community supports and goes for. … I have yet to hear anything negative about the increased spending on safety and security.”
Other districts bringing forward proposals with a security focus include Plano,Birdville and Cedar Hill ISDs.
“Unfortunately when you have those bad situations like Uvalde happen, the first thing we go to is school safety,” said Cedar Hill superintendent Gerald Hudson. “When it starts happening close to home, you get another sense of: how well are we protected? We want to make sure we are prepared. We put the facts out there and let the voters decide.”
The need for security upgrades is deep in many Texas schools, but the cost is severe, given the state’s enormous size. Texas school facilities footprint is larger than every other states’ except California, according to the National Council on School Facilities, encompassing 672 million square feet. That’s the equivalent of 224 AT&T Stadiums.
Building designs and age vary greatly, with many campuses more than 50 years old. Those buildings may not have security vestibules, modern door locks or other technology systems that have increasingly been championed amid the spike in school shootings.
After Uvalde, many politicians called for “hardening” campuses and improving campus safety via facility upgrades. Gov. Greg Abbott, for example, directed the state education agency to develop more secure building standards for existing campuses.
But the amount of state money available to pay for such upgrades is a drop in the bucketcompared to the price.
Brown said school officials are hopeful that the Legislature will appropriate more money for campus safety and security when they convene in Austin.
“But the state itself won’t cover the entire cost,” he added. “Local communities are going to have to bear much of that cost, and I think that’s why you’re seeing it in bonds.”
Last November, 47 percent of 110 district-led propositions passed. It’s hard to pin the dozens of bond defeats on any one factor.
Schools use money from bonds to pay for a variety of long-term needs, such as new facilities, campus renovations and bus fleets. Districts accounted for 36.7 percent – or $97.79 billion – of all outstanding local debt, according to the Texas Bond Review Board’s 2021 report.
Because of the current funding dynamic, districts are often reliant on successful bond elections to make large-scale security improvements. Meanwhile, the Legislature has also taken steps that education officials worry makes that more difficult.
A provision added in the state’s landmark 2019 school finance bill requires any proposition in bond elections to include the language “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE” – regardless of whether districts are asking to change their tax rates, which some are not doing this cycle.
That conflicting information is difficult to overcome at the ballot box, school officials said.
Little Elm is holding informational sessions to educate voters on the bond, including hammering home that the LEISD tax rate is not projected to change as a result of the election.
“For the average parent or average person in your community, it’s very misleading,” trustee president Jason Olson said.
After the Santa Fe High shooting – four years prior to Uvalde – state lawmakers took some steps aimed at preventing another tragedy.
A $100 million grant program was created by the Texas Legislature in 2019 to fund security upgrades. And a new per-student safety allotment also funneled about $50 million to local districts last year.
But with more than 1,000 school districts, that money doesn’t go very far. The safety allotment comes out to $9.72 per-student.
Little Elm received less than $80,000 last year via that funding pool. Meanwhile, it cost more than $1 million to run the school resource officer program, Olson said.
“The state has a large amount of money in reserves,” he said. “What I would ask is, if state legislators are really, really serious about taking our kids’ safety and security to the next level, they need to help us and provide additional funding.”
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, Todd A. Williams Family Foundation and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
©2022 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
