Tacoma School District Bond
You may have heard recently that there is a special election on a school bond coming up on March 10. The bond packs a little bit of sticker shock when you only see the $300 million price tag, but it packs a big punch. Here’s a rundown of what our kids get for that money.
- Complete overhaul of Baker Middle School
- Complete overhaul of Hunt Middle School
- Complete overhaul of Stewart Middle School
- Finishing the second half of Wilson High School (yes one half is shiny and brand new while the other one is old and falling apart)
- District wide improvements in HVAC systems, roof replacements, carpet replacement, ADA compliance, energy efficiency and more
The last bond was in 2001 and we can see the results of it in multiple new schools (Mt. Tahoma High and Gray Middle school anyone?). If this passed it would be an instant infusion into the Tacoma economy and its a good time to be buying construction materials.
A couple other local sites have been covering this story. For more information check out:
- Tacomamama has photo tours of several of the schools and is a parent herself
- The TNT’s Editorial Page has some thoughts on those for and against the bond measure.
There’s been a lot of discussion in the community so far. What do you think?
Filed under: tacoma-schools, elections
21 comments
E Erik B. March 5, 2009
Current condition of Stewart:
J Jenyum March 5, 2009
I just wanted to make sure everyone knows this is a vote by mail only election. So March 10th is actually the last day you can vote. There will not be any polling places open. Everyone should have received a ballot in the mail by now, if you can’t find yours call (253) 798-VOTE or 1-800-446-4979 for a replacement.
J J. Cote March 6, 2009
Why does Stewart look that way?? Lack of staff to maintain the buildings in the manner in which they are supposed to be.
My home was built at the same time that Wilson was built. I don’t have to tear it down and rebuild it because it has been taken care of, upgraded and maintained. Tacoma Schools has over the past several years, made cuts to staff. Those cuts were made in the building and grounds maintainence depts.
I watch every year as the baseball field falls deeper into disrepair because there is nobody to cut the grass and take care of the facility. And yet they want us to build more at Lincoln. Who will attend to it? Why pay to build more of what you already can’t care for?
Schools are in disrepair. Undisputed fact. How can the taxpayers be assured that they will care for what we build, when history shows otherwise? I’m voting no. Hopefully, they will get their act together before any money is approved. You get what you pay for.
J Jenyum March 6, 2009
Maintenance and staff money is completely separate from building money. Part of the reason these schools fall apart is the bizarre system of funding in this state. The state pays for educational programs. The district largely pays for buildings. Maintenance and other staff are sort of floating in the middle somewhere, not fully funded by the state but occasionally funded by local levies (not bonds) which also require an election.
At a certain point, a project stops being a minor repair and starts being a major capital project. At that point, things get far more complicated.
Voting no won’t get you your well maintained fields. In the short term the most constructive thing the neighborhood could do is organize a volunteer corps to help out. In the long term, fight for better funding in Olympia. In the longer term, don’t oppose school bonds, levies, and state taxing schemes aimed at education.
U uoaaa181 March 6, 2009
I like to think of it this way…my $75 or so dollars a year keeps 4 or 5 interior architects, 30 or so architects, 70 or so mechanical/electrical/plumbing/structural engineers, 3 general contractors, 10 or so city employees, countless tradesmen, various employees at manufacturers and an uncountable number of administrative personnel plus many others employed. Which of course means those people won’t be living off unemployment/food stamps/probably not losing their homes or apartments, potentially spending money at local stores keeping of course others employed.
I don’t know, frustrating as lack of maintenance is (someday perhaps we’ll learn how to take money away from sports programs instead of maintenance) in this economy doesn’t seem like much out of my pocket and seems to do more good long term than handing that $75 or so dollars to a neighbor who’s lost their job and saying “here, this will tide you over for year or so right?”
L luigi March 6, 2009
another reality… over the years, the school district has had to cut back on maintenance staff. fewer people to handle the ongoing, growing list of jobs that need to be handled at the 56 schools sites. you hear people say over and over again that they want the funds to reach the kids, that the district needs to spend money on the kids and teaching and learning. the consequences of that sort of approach is Tacoma’s aging facilities wait and wait and wait for attention. Like jenyum pointed out, sometimes the smaller projects grow larger while they wait. it’s not neglect that is going on. it is just a long list of needs that gets added to and prioritized on a regular basis.
L luigi March 6, 2009
I realized I made J. Cote’s point almost as well as J. Cote did. Sorry. I should read first, commented second.
I’ll add that if you live in a school district that plans to rebuild all of its school buildings in the future, then you live in a school district that probably doesn’t want to throw money into repairing a facility that it will eventually (hopefully soon) be replacing. It makes sense that repairs COULD be done, but doesn’t make sense that you fix up a building that you will knock down in the not so distant future. It’s a frugal move to avoid throwing money away. Start anew. Breathe life into our economy and give kids a fresh school building to get excited about.
T Thorax O'Tool March 6, 2009
Maybe if the schools spent $$$ to hire a few maintenance people per school instead of )insert controversial program here), then we’d keep our school infrastructure in working shape.
Sure seems like a common theme these last few years, doesn’t it? We build useless and empty condo towers and half-empty malls yet leave the actual important infrastructure to rot and crumble… schools that crumble past the point that the Building Inspector would condemn if it was a house, bridges that collapse (not here, at least yet) and potholes big enough to fit a VW Beetle in.
Misplaced priorities. During the Great Bubble of 1999-2007, we wasted the next couple generations’ future prosperity on nothing… nothing but partially built subdivisions, gas-guzzlers, ginormous TVs, and an orgy of credit card debt. Imagine what we could have done if not for all Our financial transgressions. If it doesn’t make you angry, you’re still feeling the effects of the Kool Aid.
L luigi March 6, 2009
Maybe you are right, T O’Tool. But maybe the older the building, the more expensive the repair. Maybe the older the building, the more difficult the materials are to locate and purchase. maybe it is less about people power and more about availability of money for capitol projects (repairs). then you are looking at bond $ and not levy $. and if we don’t pass the bond, we have even less money to pay for small projects. it’s not just about new buildings, it is about the only way the school gets funds for large AND small repairs to buildings. no bond passing means no money to fix existing buildings.
M Mofo from the Hood March 6, 2009
The minority sector of people that have invested in Tacoma for private economic interests and whose interests are secured by the legal system, can with near certainty always rely on the majority sector to pay for grandiose public projects.
J Jenyum March 6, 2009
Thorax, we actually did some great things here in Tacoma during that Bubble, including the restoration of some of our historic buildings. Imagine if we hadn’t yet restored Union Station or Stadium High School? They’d be going the way of the Elk’s Lodge.
J J. Cote March 7, 2009
They put over $120M into rebuilding Stadium and $45M into what is 1/2 of Wilson. Rich kids get the castle, poor kids get the Jail.
TOT is right. Take care of what you have. Fix it correctly and you won’t have to tear it down and build it over again.
Spread the money out to ALL the schools in a solid maintanence program that takes care of what we own.
Do you replace and upgrade the wiring in your home or tear the whole thing down and build from scratch???
Sorry, luigi, but I don’t believe for one minute that a dime of that money will go for a small repair somewhere.
Next election, watch and see if someone on the Board doesn’t say that one of THEIR accomplishments was passing THIS bond or THAT levy. It’s a political prize that they are after, nothing more. Stop buying into this crap.
Do you honestly think that the schools will close or the students will suffer WITHOUT the bond?? It’s crap! (My wife is totally against me on this and throws things at me while I type, so I understand that there is another side).
L luigi March 7, 2009
I like your wife.
If the bond passes, the kids win. The kids get a school they can be excited about. You should see the faces of the kids in Gray Middle. And no, they aren’t the rich kids. But they have the newest school! They know what it is like to go without. They were able to move into the new school MID-YEAR! What a great feeling it is to leave an 80 year old building for something created just for them. And it has clean air, no mold, no dust, clean and working lockers, and wonderful daylight coming in thru the windows. Kids aren’t missing school because the mold makes them sick. They have adequate heating and cooling systems. New books for their new libraries, with computers and a projector screen. It’s like stepping out of the dark ages and catching up with the rest of the world.
I could go on and on. I agree with you partly. Schools weren’t designed to last more than 30 years, for the most part. Truly, there is an expected life-span for schools. The problem is, some of the older schools are just too expensive to take care of. How long are you going to maintain an outdated boiler system? When you have a bunch of portables outside a school building because the population has grown, do you just keep using portables indefinitely, or do you build a new school? If you have a poorly designed school facility, do you just “live with it” and let the school population put up with the problems it deals with? For example, at Baker, they have lots of entrances and exits to their building(s). This presents a security problem. How do you monitor all the entrances and exits for safety purposes and do a GOOD JOB at it? The newly designed middle schools have made it so the main entrance is the primary one. It can be monitored securely, and it helps so much with the management of the school’s day to day activities, before and after school, too.
When I drive by Wilson, I don’t see a jail. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I happen to think it is a sharp looking building. Maybe someday, it will look like a jail to me. And frankly, I don’t really think how it looks is as important as how it functions for the students. Classes built with modern day teaching and learning in mind. It’s okay if you disagree, you know. However, if you want the schools to have a solid maintenance program, work on getting the next LEVY passed, and advocate for adequate education funding. I don’t think Tacoma Schools would have a problem with implementing your suggestion. It just needs a reliable, adequate funding source.
J Jesse March 7, 2009
Education is your best bet for a ticket out of poverty. You can preach to your kids that they need to do well in school but if you’re not backing it up with your actions, the kid will notice and take THAT example instead. Run down schoolssend a similar message that thier society does not value education, when in truth, it could be EVERYTHING to a kids future.
I Ian March 8, 2009
I always vote yes on all school bond levies. I don’t care how much it is or what they use it for. Schools are the bedrock of society. It’s silly we even have to vote on it.
I always vote no on all voter initiatives. Initiatives are stupid. It’s like letting my kids vote on whether or not they should have to brush their teeth.
Government is our mom and dad. We are lucky, we get to pick our mom and dad, but we should let them be parents between elections.
That is all.
J J. Cote March 10, 2009
As for the castle, Jenyum, sell it and convert it to condos. The view, the asthetics and the building in itself, are perfect yuppie attractors. It should have been done long ago and the money put toward actually educating children.
Most of the forty-something million that was spent on Wilson was spent on the parking lot, the drainage and the street at North 11th and Orchard. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 25+ years and I make it a point to know where the tax dollars are going.
Two of my sons were educated at Wilson, my wife is an alumnus as are both her sisters and brother. Wilson is a part of our family’s history, not just the local school.
What they have done to it is a shame. They built the stairwells to narrow to handle the volume of students. Is part of THIS bond to erase the fire trap that they created with the first one?
My youngest went to Wilson as a Freshman and is now at SOTA. If not for that, we were considering moving from the district. Wilson has a great staff, a caring, professional Principal and really great kids. We’re proud of being a part of the neighborhood and the History. I wish that the school could be built correctly and done right, but this Bond is the wrong answer.
To try to bribe the Wilson family by putting it’s completion on the same plate as ball-fields and more percs for Stadium is just a continuation of the District’s slap in the face to the Wilson neighborhood and family.
I always vote yes too when it comes to schools. This time, NO.
If they had put up this kind of building in the venerable Stadium District, most of you would now be recouperating from your stroke! Why is it OK for Wilson, then? It’s not.
M mothrapod March 10, 2009
The bond will rebuild middle schools because it will cost something like $12 million to remodel vs $14 million to rebuild the building. I work at Stewart and it would be sad to lose our beautiful old building but it hasn’t been maintained and has some serious problems. And have you been to Hunt or Baker Middle Schools recently? They are falling apart. Our kids deserve facilities that meet their educational needs.
L luigi March 10, 2009
Bribe? Why go there? The bond is intended to touch all areas of the school district because, frankly, there’s no other way to get money for upkeep, repairs, renovations, modernizations, ADA compliance, and so on. The governor said that our kids need to be successfully making it through our 21st century educational system so they will be able to compete for jobs in the global economy. LOL, so we tell some of our kids…. except for you guys because we can’t plug in more than one computer in this room, and there’s no internet yet. Please. Don’t be shortsighted. Let’s HELP the students get the facilities they NEED so they may REACH their goals and have the knowledge that their community CARES about them enough to give them a great new school building to learn in.
It is Tacoma taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for the upkeep and replacement of all 56 school buildings in the district. Like it or not, the education funding system dictates it. And it takes a lot of money to care for that many buildings. 29,000 students attend our schools. We have to provide adequate and modernized facilities as part of preparing students for their future. And I think we have to invest in our community FOR JOBS NOW, and for keeping and drawing families to Tacoma neighborhoods today and for the years to come.
K kendra March 10, 2009
This makes me think of quality of life issues. Are we ensuring our children experience the quality of life we would want for ourselves and our parents? The adults are the decision makers who design the world our children grow up in. What will the children learn to value? Will they remember the quality of life and education they experienced?
J J. Cote March 12, 2009
Thanks, Tacoma voters.
S Squid March 12, 2009
Thanks Tacoma voters.
Sincerely,
Future Generations