Eanes school district calls $131 million bond election for maintenance, facility upgrades

Jackie Uselton rifled through the mock pill bottles and test first aid kits in a mock pharmacy cabinet that doubles as storage in Westlake High School on a recent Monday morning.

“The vision would be to have a mock hospital room, hospital bay, beds,” said Uselton, health science and clinical instructor. “We do have some stuff. We’re just kind of crowded.”

Right now, the health sciences programs are stuffed into three small classrooms, she said. The roughly 200 health science students have to share one mock hospital bed.

That, however, could change if Eanes school district voters approve a proposed $131.4 million bond, which would fund facility upgrades, including some that would allow programs like health sciences to expand.

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Aging facilities, safety upgrades and technology needs have driven the Eanes school board to call for a bond election.

The bond would pay for upgrades on all Eanes campuses, Superintendent Jeff Arnett said.

“We’ve reached the point where, once again, we need to update systems such as heating and air,” Arnett said. “There are some safety and security upgrades that we need to be cognizant of.”

The bond is the largest ever proposed in the Eanes district, but unlike other districts in the area, the Eanes bond isn’t intended to address growth.

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The areas served by the Eanes district are largely developed, so the district is one of the only regional ones, along with the Austin district, that hasn’t been pained with exponential growth. Since 2017, the student population in Eanes has shrunk from 8,061 students to 7,850 students, according to district data.

The bulk of the $131.4 million package will address maintenance. The bond is aimed at updating facilities, a practice that needs to happen about every four or five years, Arnett said.

Proposition A proposes $117.8 million for security upgrades, repairs and refurbishments at each campus and modernizing libraries.

Proposition B would invest $2.4 million for upgrades at Chaparral Stadium such as replacing lights, bleachers and the track surface.

In Proposition C, the district calls for $11.2 million to replace electronic devices for students and for some labs, classrooms and offices.

Officials say the bond proposal won’t raise the tax rate. Although Texas law requires all school bond ballots to say the proposal would raise local tax rates, that's not the case in Eanes. The language is required, but officials don't expect they'll raise the district tax rate, Arnett said.

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Voters will see language on the ballot stating the proposed bond would cause a tax rate increase, but that’s not true, Arnett said. Texas law requires that language, regardless of the package’s impact on the tax rate.

“We want to do this out of bonds because that preserves the money we use to pay for staff salaries,” Arnett said.

The bond would also allow the district to expand Westlake High School’s Learning Center, which serves students who are at risk of dropping out, Arnett said. If the bond passes, the district would renovate an office building it has already purchased to accommodate administrative staff. The Learning Center could then move into the space staff works from now, which will expand capacity. The space vacated by the Learning Center will provide more room for the growing health sciences program.

That would be great news for Uselton, who has had to get creative with space to accommodate all her students.

For example, one room that was meant to be a lab houses classroom space.

"We really need a designated lab," Uselton said. "We're supposed to have two full beds and full manikins. We don't have space for the equipment we want anyway."

That hands-on experience is especially critical because if students pass the certification tests, like Community Emergency Response Team or phlebotomy, they can come out of high school with a health science certificate.

Election day is May 6. Early voting begins April 24.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas election: Eanes school district calls $131 million school bond