Bartlesville school bond issue up for vote Feb. 14

Kimberly van Veen
·2 min read
A school pickup line in front of Wayside Elementary shows how badly expansion at the school is needed. The three homes in the background were purchased by the school district. They will become a new parking lot so the school building can expand into the existing lot.
A school pickup line in front of Wayside Elementary shows how badly expansion at the school is needed. The three homes in the background were purchased by the school district. They will become a new parking lot so the school building can expand into the existing lot.

Bartlesville residents will head to the polls on Valentine's Day to vote on whether to approve $38 million in school bonds that would fund the expansion of two local schools and provide finances for other district projects.

Most of the funds will benefit the Wayside and Ranch Heights elementary schools, the two largest elementary schools in the district. Administrators plan to enlarge both school buildings.

Enrollment is up sharply at the two schools. A decade ago, Wayside had an enrollment of 556 students and Ranch Heights Elementary School had 521 students. This year, the schools served 705 and 616 students respectively. The planned expansions will allow each school to serve 760 students with increased facilities for staff, too.

While it may seem logical to start from scratch to serve a growing student population, it is more cost-effective to add to an existing building rather than build and staff a new school, according to school officials. Administrators say homeowner taxes will not increase but remain at the same $300 per homeowner annually.

A 60% super-majority of voters must approve the bond to pass. Meredith Nelson, past president of the Wayside Parent Support Association, said most people who oppose the bond do not have children in the Bartlesville Public School system. “They tend not to want their money going toward something that they do not benefit from,” Nelson said.

Nelson argues that improvements will indirectly benefit everyone. “But some people will feel their money should go elsewhere or simply that they want to keep it,” Nelson said.

School officials specifically moved the election up so if approved, work on the two school expansion projects can start June 1, when school buildings are vacant. “Wayside teachers are thankful for the work of the school district to move up the election so we can get started this summer,” Superintendent Chuck McCauley told the school board during his superintendent’s report on Jan. 16, 2023.

The superintendent also reported that two school improvement projects at Wilson and Richard Kane elementary schools, funded by previous bond issues, are in a holding pattern, due to supply chain issues.

The Bartlesville Public School district has raised money through bonds at least five times in recent years, in part because state funding is not sufficient for new construction or large-scale renovations, because the state aid per pupil “funding remains the lowest in the region,” according to school officials.

While the bond funds can’t be used for teacher salaries, by using funds for textbooks and other items, there is more money in the budget that can be shifted to pay for salaries. Last year, Bartlesville teachers got a 6-10% raise, McCauley told Bartlesville Radio. Oklahoma teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation.

More information about the bond can be found at BruinBond.com.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Bartlesville school bond issue up for vote Feb. 14