A Coast school district is asking taxpayers for $67 million. What will they get in return?
A bond initiative in the Jackson County School District could raise $67 million for new facilities and maintenance if voters approve it on May 18.
Supporters, including Superintendent Dr. John Strycker, say the bond would raise the funds for important renovations, including to schools’ heating and air systems, adding new classrooms, and strengthening the district’s athletics and extracurricular offerings.
Strycker said the entire district currently lacks a performing arts space, for example. The bond proposal would add two.
“We’re not being greedy here,” Strycker said. “This is fundamental stuff... We want gyms for the little kids. We want auditoriums for the kids in the arts. Not everybody plays football.”
Jackson County Tax Assessor Nick Elmore told the Sun Herald the initiative would increase school taxes by 13%. That works out to an increase of $75 per $100,000 of property value, or about $100 annually for the average county homeowner.
Critics say they’re happy to pay for school improvements, but think the bond’s focus on sports facilities and performing arts centers instead of new classrooms is misplaced.
Some parents in the Vancleave attendance center, one of three in the district, are also unhappy about the proposal to consolidate Vancleave Upper and Vancleave Lower Elementary Schools, which would put 1,000 students from kindergarten through fifth grade in the same building to create the district’s third-largest school.
The district’s administrative offices would then move to what are now the Vancleave Upper Elementary facilities.
Amy Arender Peterson, a former principal of Vancleave Lower Elementary who has children and grandchildren in the district, said she doesn’t understand why under the bond proposal, “more money is going to extracurricular facilities than is going to the buildings where children are educated daily.”
“No one, not a single person that I have talked to, has said they don’t want a bond at all,” she said. “Their concern is the way the bond is written, that it’s not best for children.”
To pass, the bond initiative will need support from 60% of voters on May 18.
What would the bond initiative do?
The money would pay for new extracurricular and athletic facilities and classrooms across the East Central, St. Martin and Vancleave attendance centers. It would also pay for repairs to heating and air systems, roofs and drainage systems, and other maintenance.
Under the proposal, the two Vancleave elementary schools would be consolidated at the lower elementary, where 24 new classrooms will be built to accommodate the influx of about 500 students.
According to the district, 42% of funds from the bond will be spent in St. Martin, and 29% each in East Central and Vancleave. St. Martin is the district’s largest attendance center with 4,065 students; East Central has just over 2,400 and Vancleave has just under 2,300, according to the district’s demographic study.
A complete list of the projects is available in the district’s Frequently Asked Questions document. Here are the highlights for each attendance center:
East Central
- Lower Elementary: New gym
- Upper Elementary: Eight new classrooms
- High School: New multipurpose building for band and chorus, new performing arts center and new administrative offices
- Athletics: New football field house and track lighting, restrooms and small concessions
St. Martin
- Upper Elementary: 18-classroom addition and playground
- Middle School: Band hall and choir room
- High School: New performing arts center, multipurpose gym and covered outdoor dining area
- Athletics: New facilities for softball and baseball; new bleachers, restrooms and concessions at football facility
Vancleave
- Lower Elementary: 24 new classrooms
- Upper Elementary: This school will be consolidated at the Lower Elementary building. The district’s administrative staff will move into the Upper Elementary facilities and existing administration buildings will most likely be demolished, Strycker said.
- Middle School: 12 new classrooms
- High School: New multipurpose building with band hall
- Athletics: New football stadium, new baseball grandstand, football fieldhouse renovation
What do supporters say?
The district’s last major capital expenditure was in 1996, Strycker said, and before that, in 1980. The district has no debt, and interest rates are near historic lows.
“It’s time,” he said.
Strycker said the bond plan emphasizes performing arts centers, multipurpose buildings and gymnasiums because those are the kind of “larger scale items” that require more cash on hand.
Currently, he said, the district spends about $2 million a year on facilities. That money can be used to expand and renovate classrooms as the bond projects proceed.
Strycker said moving Upper Elementary students to the Lower Elementary campus will save money on repairs to Upper Elementary facilities.
“The school succeeds or does not succeed because of the people, not because of the size,” he said.
Research on the relationship between school size and student performance is mixed.
What concerns do opponents have?
The district surveyed parents and teachers about their preferences for facility improvements. In all three attendance centers, about 60% of parents ranked classrooms as their top priority, over athletic facilities, performing arts facilities and other items: 59% in Vancleave, 63% in St. Martin and 60% in East Central.
“They did not follow what the people of the community have said are the priorities,” Peterson said.
Peterson said she felt the Vancleave community didn’t have adequate opportunities to weigh in on the plan to consolidate the upper and lower elementary schools.
Susan Kelly Garrett, a Vancleave resident and occasional substitute teacher at Vancleave Upper Elementary, said it was hard to see how the existing Lower Elementary facility could accommodate twice as many students, even after 24 classrooms are added.
And the tax increase is not small, she said, especially over the bond’s 20-year term.
Before coming to Jackson County, Strycker was the superintendent at an Alabama school district when voters rejected a school property tax hike he championed. That proposal was designed not for facilities investments like the Jackson County bond initiative but to increase overall funding.
When Strycker led the Algonac School District in Michigan, voters there rejected a tax increase, too, though they later approved a similar proposal.
Strycker said his departure from both districts was unrelated to the failure of the tax increases. If the Jackson County proposal fails, he’ll move forward with the resources the district has, he said.
“I believe in the American system of people voting,” he said. “So my point is, if the taxpayers don’t approve this, then that’s the taxpayers speaking. That’s the American way, I’m good with it.”
More information and where to vote
Tax Assessor Nick Elmore said that since 2021 is an adjustment year, home values will change. The district has said that school property taxes will likely increase even if the bond doesn’t pass, because state law allows school districts to request tax increases of below 7% without going to a vote.
You can review all the documents the district has created about the bond initiative on their website.
- List of Frequently Asked Questions
- Conceptual renderings of proposed new facilities and renovations
- Demographic study produced by Frontier Gulf Coast
A list of voting locations is at this site.
This story was originally published May 12, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
