From the Alvin and Rosalee Sarachek studio.

PBS Kansas Presents Your Schools, Your Money, Your Vote, The Wichita School Bond election.

Hello, and thank you for joining us.

I'm Peter Pedraza.

Over the next hour, we hope to make you more informed and confident about your vote, in the upcoming school bond election.

We'll attempt to discuss all that's relevant with advocates and opponents of the $450 million facilities plan.

First, here are the basic facts for USD 259 voters to consider.

The plan that's on the ballot would demolish and rebuild seven elementary and middle schools.

It would close seven schools and two administration centers.

The proposal would expand two elementary schools to include seventh and eighth grade students.

There would be a new addition to Wells Alternative Middle School and a new outdoor athletic field for Northeast Magnet High School.

Also, East High would get, in addition to House Building Trades program and the Little Early Childhood Education Center would be closed and then rebuilt after tearing down Chester Lewis Academy.

All the money would be spent on construction, none on the actual operation of the buildings or education programs.

If voters approve the bond issue, the school district's current property tax mill levy would continue for another 20 or more years.

If voters reject the plan, the mill levy will drop in 2029, when the bonds from the last bond issue back in 2008 finally get paid off.

We will spend the first half hour talking with two of the chief advocates of the bond issue and the second half hour with two opponents of the plan.

Now, let's welcome the chair of the yes for kids campaign, Bradley Dyer, junior and community outreach chair, Andrew Nave.

Thank you both so much for being here.

And we're just going to start at the very beginning.

Why do you guys support this plan?

What is it that to you makes the most.

Well first of all, thank you for having us.

It's really nice being here with you and being able to have this opportunity to talk to your audience about what we consider to be a really important issue.

I want to talk about the committee just really quickly.

The committee is a group of regular everyday which attends.

We have varying backgrounds.

We come from, different careers and different, even political identities.

It's a wide ranging group that have come in a unified sense to speak up on behalf of the district and on behalf of this bond issue, because we believe how important it is to the future of our children and the future of Wichita.

So, I'll speak for myself first us to, what I think, and then I'll let Andrew, state his case.

But I believe that right now we are at a critical place.

Wichita public schools have buildings.

This is a district, the largest district in the state of Kansas.

And they have 88 or more buildings that they are responsible for.

A large portion of those buildings are old and aging.

And when we were talking about 60, 70, 80 years old, sometimes that can become, a money pit.

You're sinking millions and millions of dollars into maintenance and repairs instead of having facilities that our children can go to that are modern, that have up to date technology and equipment that will allow students to have the opportunity to be prepped and ready for the current workforce and the future workforce.

I love Wichita, and I think it's important that Wichita prepares its children because most of Wichita's workforce is supplied by Wichita Public Schools, and I think it's important that we give them what they need in order to make sure that our community and our children are better.

Andrew, what are your thoughts?

I absolutely agree with Bradley, and thank you for having us.

I'm a parent and this Wichita Public Schools in the district, and I'm just really excited about what this means, not only for my kids, but for the future workforce of Wichita that proudly highlighted that this is an opportunity for us to invest in the future of our kids and the future of our workforce.

And to me, that's that's an exciting time.

It's a complicated subject and an in-depth subject, but one that we need to do.

It is.

It has been 17 years since we've had the bond vote in Wichita public Schools.

That means that the seniors in our high schools and this district were not born.

The last time we had an opportunity like this to invest in our schools.

So I'm just really excited about that.

I see this as an exciting investment in education and in Wichita public schools.

Now I want to kind of zone in on something that you guys both kind of mentioned since 2008, 17 years since we've had a bond vote.

There are those who are saying that, you know what?

We're still paying off the last one.

We shouldn't be starting a new one that we just fixed up a bunch of school buildings, just updated a bunch of school buildings, some of which are on the demolition, list.

Why should we be doing that?

Isn't that a waste of money?

I don't know that I would characterize it as a waste of money.

The 2008 bond had a focus.

Quite a bit of the focus was storm shelters for all of the buildings.

I don't think that it was a waste of money.

I think that was a good thing because the leaders, the school district at the time, saw what happened a year earlier in Greensburg with that tornado.

And those of us who are here now, we can relate to what happened just three years ago in Andover.

So storm shelters, was a big focus for, the 2008 bond issue.

They also did some things with outdoor athletics and gyms.

And I think thousands of students had access to, to use those facilities and those gyms.

Sometimes circumstances causes you to make adjustments to your plans and what you're doing.

And when you look at current enrollment and the administration also looked at future enrollment.

Sometimes tough decisions are made and sometimes it's it's sentimental.

If you are used to a building or a school that you may have attended, etc.

as a neighborhood school.

We understand all of that.

But, quite a bit of feedback was given from parents, educators, community people like us, and they have come up with some in some cases, tough decisions, but in some cases necessary decisions to allow the district to move forward in a progressive way.

Yeah.

The only thing I would add to that would be that we have to continue to invest in ourselves, just like, my wife and I have to, set aside some money to continue to invest in our house.

Otherwise, after 17 years, we're going to spend a lot of money with major renovations and major improvements.

And that's the way I see this, and that's the way I'm having conversations with our friends and parents and the Wichita public schools that we go to, and that it has been too long.

Yes, we've made some good, wise investments in storm shelters and other improvements across the district.

But with 88 buildings that Bradley mentioned, we've got 10,000,000ft of buildings in Wichita Public Schools, the biggest district in the state.

That means there's a lot of areas of need.

There's a lot of things that needs to be fixed up.

And so I'm an advocate because we need to continue to invest.

Yes, we've we've made improvements in the past, but shame on us if we don't continue to invest in that asset that that we as taxpayers have invested in.

Now there was also talk of modernization of buildings as well and a 21st century workforce training facilities.

As we look at those issues.

There are those who say, why should we be spending money on that?

You don't need all of these modern accouterments to learn the three R's.

The I would jump in with there.

I would say that it's more than just the three R's that that our workforce needs the cutting edge skills and tools to to work in a modern economy when you need far more than just reading, writing and arithmetic.

And proof of that is my my family and my students.

I've had two of my kids go through the future ready centers, one through the health care Future Ready Center and the other through the manufacturing and Future Ready Center.

And it is equipping them for jobs of tomorrow.

Far more than the education, maybe, that I had growing up.

And that's what this, this bond, investment will do.

In fact, at East High School, we're going to be adding a new future ready center for the construction trades, which is desperately needed in our community, in our region and across our state.

That core industry that's so important to our economy.

So I see this is critical to the future of our economy and to our future workforce.

Bradley mentioned it, but I would remind for your viewers that the Wichita Public Schools biggest school district, it's also the single biggest pipeline of talent of workers anywhere in our state.

That's Wichita Public Schools, and we need to continue to invest in them.

So for folks who aren't familiar, give me a little bit more about what these future ready centers are.

Yeah.

So my kids have been in the so it's it's it's career and technical education with a modern twist.

It is the most up to date, curriculum and programs and equipment that Cutting-Edge industries are using.

So my son is in the future ready center for manufacturing.

So it is heavily bent towards the aviation sector, but broader than that.

Within manufacturing technology, CNC equipment, things that that he's not going to learn in the classroom.

He has to learn hands on.

That's what a future ready center does.

We have a future ready center for health care.

The district board is looking at construction trades that this board would do.

And then even beyond that and IT and cybersecurity, again, the most critical industries for jobs in Wichita and our region, our school system is matching up to those which which I'm proud of as a parent that we are we are meeting the need of our local economy.

And if I would add to that, I would encourage people, if you have an opportunity, visit one of these future ready centers.

I have had an opportunity to to go to both.

They're very impressive and you can see why it's needed, particularly, as Andrew just said, jobs of the future.

But the manufacturing, Trade center, it's very impressive.

And you get an opportunity to expose kids up from the high school level to careers that can command good salaries.

And I'm excited about the new one on its way when we pass this bond on the 25th.

Electricians, Hvac help, welding, all of those things can command good salaries and is needed.

And we're going to expose our children to those things at the high school level.

So one of the issues that has come up a lot, as the back and forth has been happening about this bond issue, has been property taxes.

Talk to me about how this vote would impact property taxes.

Yeah.

So it's a zero rate change.

Bond proposal.

So what that means is the property tax rate that's currently on the books today, 7.5 mils of your property taxes are going to to bond to construction for Wichita Public Schools.

It's about 35, 40 other additional mills that pay for other things in public education, on top of your city taxes and your county taxes.

So doesn't affect those.

But what this will do is will continue that 7.5 mills into the future and do it up to another 20 years.

And what I'm proud of, our district school district leadership, of looking at, the economy right now and looking at the timing of this bond vote and saying there's a lot of needs in our district from a from a construction standpoint, we could probably, expand this bond by quite a bit.

But what's reasonable, what's efficient, what makes sense right now is not to increase the mill levy or increase taxes, like so many school districts around us are doing.

But to hold the line and keep that, keep that constant, to keep that flat.

So this bond where to pass this the mill levy will not increase.

Nobody's nobody's tax rate will go up.

And that's what again is a is an efficient use and good steward of our tax dollars.

I appreciate that.

And I'll just add to what Andrew said I couldn't have explained that better.

But one of the things I would like the taxpayer to be aware of is that the district was trying to be considerate of them as taxpayers, by keeping that bond rate the same.

There's a lot of noise out there.

The message that we have is that this is a zero rate change bond rate, and that's a fact.

The numbers are the numbers.

Currently, your current mill is 7.5 mills.

The new 17.5 mills.

Now, I know they deal with rising home values, though.

7.5 mills yesterday is not the same bill that people are going to see is 7.5 mills tomorrow, because our homes are worth more.

According to who knows.

So for folks, especially on limited incomes, on incomes that are not going to increase, especially the retirees, what do you say to them as they look at this and say, but my bill is still going to get bigger?

Yeah, I would say absolute as your as your property value continues to increase, that that certainly can happen.

But what I was reminded of is that this is for our future workforce.

And so the the opportunity to invest in them and to can continue to keep our economy strong.

That to me is as a as a, as a family and a voter outweighs the it's going to continue the tax that I'm currently paying.

That's more important to me in the long run than maybe a little bit of a savings on a per month basis.

And the other thing I would say is that, keep in mind that 7.5 Mills is a is a taxable amount, but an average tax rate in Wichita is 115, 120 total mills.

So it's about 6%, 7% of your total tax bill.

So it's not a massive amount of someone's property taxes.

And it is a portion.

But it's not a massive amount of savings that are going to be coming, coming to families and to add to that, just for context, and if your viewers are like me, every dollar matters.

And so I don't want to sound dismissive or casual about this point that I'm going to make.

But just for context and perspective, if you own a home with about a $200,000 value, this is about 170 $374 per year.

This is $14 per month.

And so I think that's why Andrew was saying, I don't mind making a $14 per month investment if it's going to position our district to create better learning environments for our children, that will become the workforce for tomorrow.

Talk to me a little bit.

We've talked about a couple of the programs, but overall all how will the issues that this bond will work on help the district and help the district's students compete with other districts in the years to come?

So right now, and I appreciate the opportunity to say this because there's there's noise and we want to address some of the noise.

Wichita Public Schools, one of the things you have people are talking about is proficiency scores, etc.. Wichita Public Schools is not doing as badly as it's being portrayed.

A lot of people point to the Kansas State assessments, and for good reason.

It's it's a good test to look at, but it's an aerial view.

Whereas that state assessment has nothing to do with graduation or finding out the true proficiency of a child.

The district has several other assessments that they use.

And right now, the district has Act scores going up, SAT scores going up, reading, Ela proficiency.

All of those things are actually going up in the district as we speak.

If we can get to a place where our facilities don't need as much maintenance, we can redirect millions of dollars into making sure that those proficiencies and the students, are doing better.

By paying attention to curriculums and our teachers and the education, so forth, so on.

Yeah, I would add to the first part of your question to me, it makes it's a wise investment because we're getting ahead of the deferred maintenance that that's already in our buildings.

Again, Bradley mentioned the the average age of the buildings in Wichita public schools.

The average age is 67 years.

We have buildings that are decades old from the 1950s and the 1960s.

We have to invest in these properties to maintain them, or unfortunately, we're going to be investing even more money with emergency repairs and things that that we just can't get ahead of.

And so that's why I think being a good steward and a wise investment is to invest a little now, as opposed to potentially paying a lot more in the long run.

And it's not going to get better.

These buildings aren't getting younger.

Aging buildings are aging buildings.

Just to give you a quick anecdote, I went to a building, one of these buildings, and a teacher told me a story, whereas her heater went out, the technicians came to fix it.

They couldn't fix it because they didn't have the part.

They couldn't get the part because the building is so old and the system is so old, they don't manufacture those parts anymore.

And so someone was trying to make a part, to try to rig it, so to speak, and that's not just that one building.

You have stories like that throughout the district aging buildings.

Well, talking about that, that issue, the deferred maintenance, what do you say to those who say we should be spending this money on maintenance as opposed to new construction or major renovations?

I would say that a lot of the the school bond is on maintenance.

It's making significant improvements.

To a large portion of the district.

But as Bradley mentioned earlier, our district enrollment, the population of Wichita Public Schools has just declined.

We have too many buildings for the current footprint that we have today.

And for the current amount of students that we have today, we have to make adjustments.

Just being a good steward of the resources that we have, we have to make adjustments.

And that requires some buildings that are so old that they're beyond maintain.

Maintenance standpoint, we have to to significantly renovate them or in some cases, redevelop them.

But no, they're absolutely will be significant investments across the district.

And a number of buildings, more than two dozen buildings will see investment.

So it's not just a few new schools.

It's investments across our district.

So you guys obviously here, you've been part of this ongoing coalition effort to support the bond issue.

What are other ways that you have been involved in the schools in pushing for these changes that this bond would make happen?

So I myself I work for Credit Union of America.

It is the second largest, credit union in the state of Kansas, Credit Union of America's, widely recognized as the educator's credit union.

So I have a fortunately have a unique lens, being in and out of these buildings, from time to time.

We talk with, administration and educators all the time about the conditions of their building.

And, I think it's important that people understand that it's not.

You can encourage that the buildings are better and maintenance is there and repairs are there.

But at some point, you need to stop, repairing old things.

That's only going to sink more dollars into it and get something that's up to date, properly coded, and has the proper equipment to, the labs, etc.

that's going to allow students to learn better.

And then you can take all of those millions of dollars and do do more things with them, including teacher salaries, and so forth, so on.

So I just think that I have a voice with and to the district.

And while we encourage them to make sure that, things are doing are doing well in terms of proficiency and academics, I really think that this is something that's going to change us for the future.

And I work for a nonprofit that allows me some some access and engagement in the district, and not nearly to Bradley's level, but as a parent, I'm heavily involved.

My wife is on a local PTA for a couple of our kids schools, and I'm on the district site council, and what that allowed me to do is to have a lens into the community engagement that this process started with all the way back to 2023 and then through the facility master plan.

Last year, there was multiple surveys, multiple dozens of meetings, community meetings, and then school board meetings where input has been received from parents, from patrons, from key stakeholders in the community where this this plan has been really developed over months and months and months.

A lot of discussion, robust discussion.

But I'm really proud of our district and our leadership that have taken the community's input into this process about what's right for Wichita Public Schools and what's right for for our community.

Now, there's a lot of talk, today about Dei diversity, equity and inclusion.

But one word in there I want to pull out equity, equitable.

What about this bond issue will ensure that all students in the Wichita district get the same access to the same level of education?

I would say that because we're making investments across the district and multiple buildings, again, more than two dozen buildings are going to see investment and reinvestment that is spreading it across more than 1 or 2 schools or, 1 or 2 facilities.

We have to spread out the investment across the district from the east to the west.

And that's what this plan does.

And then, as Bradley said, it will allow us to free up some of the other capital where this not to pass.

We're going to be having students and our and our kids and even older buildings trying to learn and smaller classrooms and even older structures.

And that's just not equitable either.

And right now, today, one could argue equity ability is an issue, even as, we stand here today.

But equity ability is part of the consideration in the future, facilities master plan so that a broader spectrum of students across the district have access to the same things and the same kind of curriculum, the same kind of equipment, the same type of technology, that will only be beneficial to them and their learning.

How do you see this bond issue helping the district maintain financial stability?

As we're going through a very financially unstable time in our economy?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's critical that we pass this bond now because on the horizon, if we don't have the resources to continue to invest in our schools, those costs are only going to go up that old building that needs a little bit of maintenance.

Now, that cost is going to skyrocket in the future and ten years in 20 years.

If we don't continue to maintain this, I think we have to look at this and part of that, I, me and my family, we've only been here the last eight years, coming from the Kansas City area.

We chose to to move to this, the west side of Wichita, to the Wichita Public Schools, after looking at a number of school districts around us.

They're all great schools, but we chose the education and the environment of Wichita Public Schools is right for us.

And and what you see is if we don't invest now, if we don't, continue to, to put resources into our buildings, those costs are only going to go up.

And I'll use a practical example that I'm sure your viewers will be able to understand.

And it's funny hearing this from a banker.

I don't like new cars.

Right.

I, I hold a car of ten years if I, if I'm able to.

There was one of our vehicles that was a gas guzzler, and we just kind of kept sinking, money into that vehicle, and I would repair it, keep driving it, and my wife would always be like, do.

It's time to let that go.

Let's let's get a new vehicle.

But I held on to it till the very, very end.

But at some point, it just made sense that I'm wasting money.

Always, trying to repair this vehicle rather than getting something new.

Our finance has changed.

You talked about financial stability.

We were able to see that we were holding on to more of our money, and we could redirect those dollars into more things, including with our son and with ourselves and our savings.

And so we I found that we were more financially stable when we didn't have to dump money into a gas guzzler and keep repairing it.

The district will have the same experience.

There are going to be more financially stable.

If they can, not concentrate so much on maintenance and repairs, but concentrate on other things.

As you guys have been out and about talking with voters, do you feel that the voters have a good understanding of what's going on with this bond vote?

Has the district done enough to communicate what it wants to do and what it's planning to do?

I think we're getting the message out.

I think a unique challenge for us is that this is a special election on February 25th, so it's a unique it's the only thing on the ballot that day.

So that comes with some inherent challenges.

It's not a regular election day where there's multiple other issues, drawing the voting public to to the polling place.

So I think that's the challenge.

The district absolutely is getting the word out.

The Vote Yes campaign, the the group that Bradley and I are supporting with, we are getting the word out.

And what I've found over the last few weeks, certainly coming out of the holidays, hard to get people's attention on a subject like this.

Before the end of the year.

And with the snowstorms that we all experienced in the district commander, so much of the district's time and attention there in the first part of January.

But what I'm finding the conversations I have now are people are aware of it and are hearing about it and understand the importance of yes, we need to continue to invest in ourselves.

Yes, that makes a wise investment, to not let our buildings deteriorate and fall to disrepair.

So I'm finding that conversation a lot easier.

But when I tell people that it's February 25th special election, oh, we get to vote on that day.

I didn't know that was a voting day.

So I think that's the challenge we have and we're working on it.

We've been, Andrew's responsible for the community outreach, has been doing an excellent job, getting out to the public and trying to find opportunities to speak and and share with people and inform them and educate them.

We also have a canvasing committee, and they've been getting out over the last couple of weeks and will continue to get out until the 25th.

And the canvasing committee.

Footwork.

I know we're out here, we're busy and we're working there, getting to actual doors and knocking on doors and engaging with people.

So we're we're doing our part to try to educate people on the issues and answer their questions.

And, shout out to the the Wichita community because they're asking questions, they're interested are becoming even more interested.

And we're trying to do our best to answer those questions.

So keeping it 1 to 2 sentences, why should the Wichita in on the street vote for this bond?

You'll have the close.

I'll just say that it's the efficient use of our tax dollars.

We've made investments in the millions and our school buildings.

We have to continue to invest in those to keep them up.

Okay.

Wichita should vote for this bond because they care about their community and they care about their children.

This is about our children becoming better and doing better.

And this is about our community becoming stronger and and thinking about the future of Wichita.

Okay, I hope the answer to this is there are none.

But is there anything I haven't brought up that you think we should have discussed?

I don't know.

Nothing that comes immediately to mind.

But again, I would just remind people that this is February the 25th.

We're asking you to share with your neighbors.

Reach out to us if you have any questions.

We'd be happy to answer them, and let them know that this is happening.

And this is critical.

I think there is a danger in delaying or more importantly, denying, this bond at this time, because it's only going to get tougher.

And tougher decisions may come as a result of not passing this bond.

That's it.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

It's time for us to make a switch.

We want to extend a special thanks to Bradley Dyer, junior, and Andrew Nave of the yes for kids campaign for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we are going to welcome two representatives from Wichita United for Better Education.

That's the political action committee opposing the bond issue.

They are political strategist Ben Davis and former State Board of Education member Will Walt Chappell.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

And actually, let's start with that with your PAC.

Ben, I understand you're the one who started it.

What was the purpose and what are you guys up to?

Yeah, thanks.

It's great to be with you.

I appreciate the opportunity.

I started the PAC to bring together, like, the yes campaign, a very diverse coalition of people.

It transcends party affiliation, socioeconomic status that people who are really concerned, who care about our schools, who want a better education and a better educational future for our students.

But I think that this bond is the wrong idea, the wrong time.

And it's taking the focus off of where the school district should be, which is improving student outcomes and student education, and instead getting focused on, you know, spending a whole lot more money on new buildings that aren't going to accomplish anything.

Given the history of where the school district has been and what they've done with prior bonds and what what was it that attracted you to this coalition academic achievement?

Well, what the kids have learned be proficient when they come out, be able to have employable skills.

And these bonds, they're not going to do that.

So let's look at the bonds we have.

Earlier in this program, we talked about what the bonds are set up to do.

What is your objection to those goals.

Well, there are several and I'm sure we'll get into that throughout the course of the conversation.

There's the obvious one.

And that's just on the terms of the tax rate, right?

I mean, yes, it is a, technically a zero tax rate increase.

It's 7.5 mils.

But it was 7.5 mils that were created in 2008 with the 2008 bond.

And then that bond, we had $370 million in this current bond proposal.

It's $450 million.

That $80 million difference.

Our our property taxes, which have gone up in that time and they're only going to continue to go up.

So when we heard the the yes campaign say earlier that, oh, you know, it's the savings are going to be somewhat minuscule.

Well, first of all, I think that that's pretty tone deaf to say that it's minuscule.

Putting the value of a dollar for somebody else's is not.

I don't think that's the business we want to get into.

But the other thing is that's not a static number.

Those are based on today's valuations.

Those valuations are only going to continue to go up.

And so that's one of the immediate ones.

I mean there are several others.

I don't think that this bond is going to accomplish what the yes campaign says that it is.

We have passed prior bonds two since year 2000.

And in that time we've only seen student proficiency scores, Act scores and other metrics only continue to go down.

We've seen behavioral issues, violence in schools.

All of those things have continued to increase.

We've seen new schools come online just even in the last ten years or so, and they've not delivered on the promises that they said, look, the school has the money, they have $80 million this year for capital outlay.

They're sitting on $84 million in capital outlay reserve.

So we keep hearing about how dire the circumstances are in Wichita.

Public schools.

Yet they're sitting on this money.

So if the circumstances really are that dire, why are they not utilizing the money that they already have to fix those problems?

So it seems like there's been a lot of misinformation and a lot of mismanagement of funds and re-upping for another 20 years.

And $450 million just in phase one is, I think it's a double.

Well, I've been very concerned about this idea that it's a zero tax rate.

There's no way that I can see that.

Well, we're we had 370 million.

That was the basis for the 7.5, but now we're adding another 80 million on top of that.

Plus the current bonds aren't going to be paid off until 2029.

And it's likely that the interest rates on those bonds will be higher than what we're currently paying.

And the third thing that we've all talked about, and you mentioned earlier, is assessed value of our property.

It keeps going up.

So our tax bill goes up.

We're going to be paying more, even though they keep putting it out on the top of every handout.

Zero tax rate change.

Know what.

That doesn't make a bit of sense.

And I don't agree with the idea that you should blow smoke at people and expect them to buy it.

It's just not true.

What about this question of deferred maintenance that we have buildings that are so old?

You can't even find the replacement parts to maintain heaters, which was one example given in our earlier interview, that those things need to be replaced in some cases, it is now cheaper to replace or to do major renovations than to try to continue maintaining.

Yeah, I would completely reject that argument.

And I and I also reject the fact that, again, that we're sitting on $84 million in carryover cash reserve funds specifically designed for capital projects, and that money is not being used for that.

In addition to their annual capital outlay budget, which this year is going to be $80 million.

So my question is, what have they been doing with this money?

Why are they sitting on this excess money?

If the situation is really that dire and we're having Hvac issues with, you know, parts that we can't find, you know, the, the replacement for, why have we allow it to get it?

Why have we allowed it to get to that point?

To me, it's just an indictment on the 2008 bond, that there were a lot of money that were spent on projects that we couldn't afford to keep up for, long term, and that maybe those dollars were not directed to where they should have been if these ongoing maintenance issues have been there all along and we're just now starting to wake up to them or do something about them, so it raises more questions than it answers.

And I reject I reject the idea.

I mean, unless they're just being wildly irresponsible, but it seems to me like they are either overselling or in some cases, maybe even, manufacturing a crisis because they're about ready to lose a revenue stream and they see an opportunity to try to keep that going for another 20 years.

The way we heard the yes campaign talk a few minutes ago.

We are never going to let this bond go.

And in fact, we seem to be getting more and more bonds.

This is just phase one, by the way.

The school district has planned phases two and three.

And if the people of Wichita want to go and vote for all three of these phases, we could be looking at $2.1 billion just in principal, not interest, $2.1 billion in additional tax revenue for these massive building projects.

So this is just phase one.

The $450 million.

To me, this just seems like another boondoggle, like what we experienced in 2008, what we're going to get a lot of new features and things that obviously we can't afford to keep up with in the long term.

And no scores will be affected.

No students will have a better outcome.

Teachers will continue to, to not have the resources they need.

And we're going to continue to hear a lot of these things of how we can't keep up, and we need more money from the taxpayer.

All right.

I went online to the data central of the Kansas Department of Education and downloaded the current budget for this year, and it shows for the last three years that we've had $123 million in capital funds paid already to contractors in the school district for various projects.

And has been pointed out there's another 80 million in their budget for now.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who's been involved with school finance for 50 years, kind of growing the beard, and I've seen this movie before.

You don't go out and have month after month.

The school board is looking at a consent agenda with millions of dollars, 20 million, 50 million, all projects that have very little to do with student achievement.

They have more to do with a special pet project that a contractor found, for example, resurfacing gym floors, redoing parking lots.

We've had a project that Hutton Construction had for a loading dock out of the service center, and it started at 5 million and it's now 7 million.

I think we're up to maybe 10 or 12 million for loading dock.

Now, to me, that has nothing to do with kids learning, and I'm very concerned that we've had eight mills we pay every year.

It's charged to feel like we bring the funds in.

It goes out for these pet projects and they're not taking the maintenance serious.

The priorities, if they've got a problem with an Hvac, fix it.

If you have cold rooms, take care of it.

But don't put down the money on these pet projects that have nothing to do with the school or the kids.

So in your opinions, what should this district be doing to improve learning outcomes for Wichita students?

Well, I think they need to get focused on an actionable plan to actually help students improve on the on these test scores, which we've continued to see decline.

You know, we've heard from the opposition that, well, you know, the test scores really don't matter that much and that it's just a kind of a high level thing.

And actually, our Act scores are on the rise.

While I was listening to that, I happen to look at a handful of Act scores at Northeast High School, North High School, Northwest High School.

I'm a graduate of North High School myself, Northeast High School, which I believe is now 12 years old, maybe maybe 13 years old.

So it's not very old at all.

It's it's a newer building that we, the taxpayer, paid a lot of money for to get their act scores, according to the state, have continued to decline.

They were over 21% and now they've slipped down to below 18%.

So all and same thing was true for North High School.

And the same is true for Northwest High School.

So I don't know where they're getting this information.

It's certainly not coming from the Kansas Department of Education, which is looking a lot of different metrics.

State assessments, Act scores and all the rest.

And the data, the data is telling the truth about this.

The students are not being well equipped for whatever reason, and there needs to be an actionable plan to to be able to change that.

Look, I think that a future workforce readiness center might be a great idea.

First of all, that does not cost $450 million.

I think that a lot of these people who they brought together for this coalition could easily do a massive fundraiser if find partners, things like that.

Greater Wichita Partnership, which Andrew Nave is a part of.

They get millions of dollars from companies from all over Wichita.

I'm sure they could raise the money to do that.

I think it's a great idea, but I think that we're graduating students who don't have basic proficiency skills in math and reading to even make use of going to a future readiness, workforce center.

I agree, we need these students.

This is Wichita's workforce pipeline.

This is our future.

We we need to take this very seriously.

I completely reject the false dichotomy that the yes campaign has set up, that somehow, if you are saying no to this bond, then you are saying no to Wichita kids into Wichita education.

That is simply not true.

I am absolutely pro public education.

I am pro Wichita schools.

But I want accountability, I want transparency, and I want them to take their focus on student achievement and having a plan to present to the public, or at least to teachers, to increase student achievement rather than raising our taxes over the next 20 years for a bunch of new buildings and prep projects that will not accomplish that goal.

You know, I heard the two previous gentlemen talked about, well, scores are supposedly coming up.

I don't know where they're getting their information.

Like I said, I was on the state Board of Education, and I've known for years that we do not have performance at anywhere close to the level we should.

For example, we're now at 17.1% of our kids proficient in Wichita, Kansas.

We have only 14% proficient in math, 16.9% in science.

This is ridiculous.

We've spent all this money.

We're spending almost $1 billion a year in state, federal, and local taxes to educate our kids.

And now we're going to have a bond issue that has really nothing to do with increasing student performance.

So instead of going up from the bond issue in 2008, scores have actually dropped.

And it's not just because of Covid.

That's an excuse.

We have now looked at the data from 2023, 2024, when we're just talking about the act scores, they're only 16% of the kids in Wichita, Kansas, who are seniors took that test that are proficient enough with a score of 21 and above.

Now that's just sad.

All of the other surrounding school districts are much higher in performance.

And one of the things that you ask about is how do we improve it?

They have and all these surrounding school districts, at least 15 to 1.

That's a mile to the maximum of students, to teachers.

When you close all these schools in Wichita, part of this bond issue, you're going to have to move those kids into other buildings.

You're going to increase class size.

The teachers are going to have to teach four kids per class.

And as a former teacher yourself, you know how difficult it is.

If you've got a kid that's acting out, you got to get him under control or her under control to have the rest of the kids pay attention to what you're trying to teach.

So if you go from 15 to 1, which is where we are now in most of our schools to 20 to 25 students per teacher, it's not going to help at all.

Improve student achievement.

Are there any aspects of this bond issue in themselves that you see as being useful to help students?

Like I said, I think the the Future Readiness Center, it's by itself as a standalone is a good idea, but that doesn't require a $450 million bond over 20 years to accomplish that.

I think that's something that that if the say yes, people or the school district wanted to, they could rally community partners.

I would certainly love to participate in that as a, as a citizen, to, to give the money to just say, look, we need this for, for our students.

And Wichita itself as a manufacturing town has a niche here.

And we can be a pipeline not just for the Wichita workforce, but for America, maybe the world's workforce.

So I think that itself is a good idea.

But the rest of the bond and what they have proposed, I mean, let's just be upfront about this.

I mean, you had mentioned in the previous segment about the the Dei and particularly the equity piece.

Look at the schools that were closed down last year.

A lot of those were in disadvantaged, poor neighborhoods.

Look at the schools that they want to close down this coming year.

And the year after.

I think what for elementary schools in, in City Council District six, which is a large area, poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods.

So they're talking about building new schools way outside of town, and they're wanting to close down even more schools among poor communities.

Now, to me, that does not seem very equitable.

That doesn't seem like you're rallying together community partners to make sure that these kids have a quality education.

I think that education and what we're seeing here is one of the civil rights issues of our time.

Absolutely.

But a new building like what we've seen with Southeast High School and others, that that's not going to accomplish anything, at least not what the school district says, that it's going to.

We need to make sure that our teachers have the resources they need, that they have the, the, the, the, the equipping, the training, the support that they need from the district.

We need to have more community involvement, parental involvement, making sure that our kids are receiving the best education possible to go out there and achieve the American dream of, you know, the future.

Ready idea is something I've supported all my career.

In fact, when I ran for the school board here, both state level and local level, I had two words employable skills.

And so one of the things I did while I was on the state board is I developed, drafted a bill, and we passed it to the legislature, finally was signed in 2012 to allow every junior and senior in high school to go ahead and be able to go to C, W, S, U tech, be able to take the courses to become certified as a welder.

They have a construction trades program.

It's been there since 2012.

They have aviation mechanics.

They have computer programing, all kinds of programs you can take.

And the deal is all those kids in high school can take those courses for free.

The problem is Wichita Public Schools will not lift them out of the classroom.

They would not let them leave the high school to go to double tech.

And I said to many of the people Jim Means was in charge of a career in tech ed at the time said, Jim, please let him out of school.

It's free.

The tuition is going to be paid by the taxpayers of Kansas, but those kids will get an industrially recognized certificate.

Now at East High, there's already buildings there that Wichita State Tech uses.

You can renovate them.

Construction trades.

When I was there as a student in the 50s and again date me, I graduated from East in 59.

There was already industrial arts in those buildings, so renovating inside, that's nowhere close to 450.

My point again is that yes, that will help a few students, the one they have at North High.

They bought that building for $2 million.

It was a Dylan store at Waco on 13th.

Well, it sat there for 10 or 15 years, empty.

They use it for a warehouse, kept it closed.

Finally they opened it last year.

About 150 students are they're taking some courses in manufacturing.

That's wonderful.

But that's nowhere close to the 400.

Excuse me, the 47,000 students we have in our school district.

So we use a little red herring out here to get everybody excited.

Oh, they're going to learn construction trades.

That's a drop in the bucket.

They already have the opportunity.

If they just let them out of school and go out here to Wichita Tech.

So a lot of talk about we need some of these repairs, some of the new buildings to create learning centers so these students can get 21st century skills.

Be ready to enter the 21st century job market.

How do you see that being done without making the changes that the bond issue would call for?

We've not received.

We've not received in a solid argument or any proof that what we already have is not good enough to be able to equip students.

I think what we've seen is actually the opposite, that everything we have is not being fully utilized, and that buildings itself are not the problem, they're not the issue.

The budget for the school district has increased, what, 35%, 37%, something like that, over the last 5 to 6 years?

They seem to be getting the money they need to be able to execute on these various things, but the translation is not happening into better outcomes for our students.

So we've not been given any proof at all that a new building is somehow going to lead to better scores or better future readiness for our students.

Let's just go to Southeast High School.

Southeast High School is the largest expenditure for the 2008 bond, as budgeted at $54 million, ended up being anywhere from 65 to $68 million.

If you go look at Southeast High School and it was completed in 2016, and you look at the proficiency scores, some of them are in the single digits.

So we have a brand new school.

We have all of these these bells and whistles and these things that the district has said.

There are we're going to get with all these other new buildings to equip our students.

And yet we've got proficiency scores again in the single digits.

That school was only built for 2000 students.

They've been overcapacity almost since they've opened their doors.

So there's a lot of issues here.

Again, I would agree with with with Walt here.

I think a lot of what we're seeing is a is a red herring because they are about ready to lose a revenue stream.

And so we need to manufacture a need and a crisis to be able to keep this revenue stream.

And we can pitch this to taxpayers.

Really.

We're taking our eye off the ball and not making sure that our kids are getting the best education that we possibly can to send them out to be successful.

Well, you know, you and I have known each other for a long time.

I'm a nerd when it comes to numbers.

I want to be able to see the data, check the facts out before I open my mouth.

I want to be able to make sure I'm speaking the truth, and I'm just appalled at all the misinformation that the district's putting out.

A large part of it's coming from the architects, and the contractors are going to benefit.

They're the ones that got that 370 million last time, plus the 60 million in FEMA money for the storm shelters.

They're the ones promoting this right now.

So they're the ones that are going to benefit.

It's not the kids.

It won't be the teachers.

My concern is that we have yet to come to grips with the fact we've got all these amounts of money.

It's up.

Like he said, 35% increase in revenue, which includes 25% more from the state legislature.

We had a 7% increase in local income from the property taxes since 2017.

Now, where am I headed with this?

We hired 536 more non classroom employees with the FEMA money.

Excuse me, with the Covid money that was $262 million.

We weren't through in about four years.

Well that money is already spent.

But we kept all those people on the payroll.

So the architects right now, they were given at the last board meeting, kind of a go ahead on the consent agenda without any discussion in front of the public.

$11 million is what those architects want to charge.

If they get this contract.

11 million.

That's not for the capital outlay, maintenance projects that's going to do with contractors.

So the architecture behind this because they see big dollar signs, 11 million.

The contractors see the rest of that 450 million for themselves.

What's the benefit for the kids, for the parents, for the teachers?

It's not there.

And what we've seen since 2008 is these scores drop.

They have dropped very significantly.

They're half of what the rest of the districts are around us.

In fact, when you look at the data from the state level to what Wichita is, we're almost half below all the rest of the state, and you compare us to maze two and over to Valley Center, it's even worse.

So we're spending the money.

We're not getting the results.

So not getting the results in your opinions, where should we be spending the money to get the results that we need?

Yeah, I think that the the well obviously we have the, the capital projects that need to be done in terms of just ongoing maintenance issues and things like that.

And so if they, they need to be spending that money to make sure that those issues are actually taken care of and not just sitting on it in a reserve fund, for whatever reason.

And again, I don't know why that is and I don't know why they're not using that.

I've heard if the bond doesn't pass, that they're going to start using that money for some of these Hvac issues and things like that.

But I don't necessarily know if it's a re channeling of money that's going to improve the education.

I think maybe it's just making sure that teachers are getting the, the, the support and the training and things like that that they need in order to do this.

I think maybe supporting teachers when we're dealing with disciplinary issues in classes and things like that.

So I'm not saying that, you know, diverting some funds from here or there, shifting it around couldn't be helpful.

But I don't I don't know if that is going to be the one solution that gets this.

I would much rather see the district spend their time and energy and whatever money they have for more community outreach to invite people into the schools, to invite parents to take a more active part in their child's education, to make sure that these kids are getting the the direction and the support and things like that that they need to meet this bond.

If all the things that we can say about and there's plenty to say negatively about it, but I think one of the biggest ones is that it's become the focus of the school district's time and attention, when it should be the student and student outcomes and student education.

And they're and they're banking a lot saying that getting these new buildings or these projects completed are going to complete a student education without providing any proof that that's the case.

They're just saying, well, you know, we just want to be up to date and future ready.

I mean, those aren't arguments.

Those are just buzzwords.

So I would like to see a more actionable plan and inviting the community in.

You know, the opposition talked about, well, you know, we had all these community involvement and these community meetings and things like that.

Look, I've seen some of those I've heard the people who were here at those meetings.

I've seen what the recent meeting, they had to talk about the bond.

If you took staff out of it.

There were six parents who showed up.

So, I mean, you know, and I'm not necessarily blaming that on the school district.

You can have a lot of meetings.

And if people don't show up, they don't show up.

But to say that they just have this outpouring of of opinions and outpouring of support and hearing from all the people when I'm hearing constantly from people, people who are adamantly opposed to the bond, people who are still making their mind up about the bond, there are plenty of those people out there is that this whole thing seems very rushed.

It seems like they didn't do their due diligence, that they've not really taken the time.

Why was it just a few months to make the decision?

Why not wait a year or more?

What?

What's the big rush with this?

Why pay $113,000 of taxpayer money to have a special election at the end of February?

What an odd time.

When they could have waited and waited for the primary election.

Waited for, waited for the next general election to roll around, given the public more time to absorb this and hear both sides and all this, it all seems very, very rushed.

And they've paid to have this, this election.

When they did, and, you know, the cynic in me, I guess, on this says that they did it because they wanted to have an odd time because they, they didn't want huge voter turnout.

I don't have proof of that, but it sure seems that way.

So anyway, I think those are just a couple thoughts there, but I really wish that they would have given the public more time and more input before they put this plan before us.

All right, 15 seconds.

Is there anything we haven't touched on that you think we should have?

I will mention something very specifically.

Our kids need to be able to pay attention and learn.

We have done social promotion for a long time, and there's so much chaos and bullying and violence in our schools right now.

We have teachers leaving.

When they hired 536 more, they actually had a drop off a 6% of our classroom and licensed teachers.

They're fed up.

They're retiring early.

They're taking on jobs in other districts, and they say, that's it.

I'm going to have to interrupt you.

We are out of time.

Thanks again to Ben Davis, Walt Chappell, as well as Brian Bradley Dyer Jr and Andrew Nave, who were on earlier for taking the time to answer my questions early.

In-person voting begins Tuesday, February 18th, at the Sedgwick County Election Office satellite voting locations open on Thursday the 20th.

Then February 25th is Election day.

All registered voters who live in USD 2.59 are eligible.

I'm Peter Pedroza.

We hope you had all your questions answered over the past hour, and will now go and exercise your right to vote.

We appreciate you watching.

Good night.