Shawnee Mission’s Board of Education is weighing two options for an upcoming March bond that would fund the rebuilding of more aging elementary schools and a new career and technical education center. 

But the proposals’ outlines, presented to the school board last week, sidestep for now the question of whether East Antioch Elementary will be closed in the future and combined with another nearby school. 

Both bond proposals reviewed by the board at its meeting last Monday center on rebuilding Belinder and Rosehill elementaries, two of the oldest schools in the district. Both proposals also support financing construction of a new district career and technical education campus.

The key difference between the two bond plans calls for a third as-yet-unnamed elementary to be rebuilt along with Belinder and Rosehill.

The district said the third school rebuild would not be named until after a March vote, but East Antioch and Santa Fe Trail elementaries have previously been identified as schools nearing the end of their lives.

Last month, the board delayed a decision on potentially closing East Antioch in five years and combining it with Santa Fe Trail following pushback from parents. 

Deputy Superintendent David Stubblefield presented the two bond proposals Monday night, after the board requested a new project list following the vote to delay a decision on East Antioch. 

The board is set to finalize a bond proposal next month to put before voters in March.

“Moving forward with bond 2027 fulfills our mandate to provide safe, accessible and high-performing learning spaces,” Stubblefield said, “without overburdening taxpayers.”

Elementary school rebuilds, new career education center

Both proposals total roughly $370 million worth of capital improvements across the district — with no increase to the mill levy rate, according to the district. 

The plans include the rebuilding of Belinder and Rosehill elementary schools, constructing a dedicated career and technical education campus, renovations to secondary school buildings and more.

The biggest difference is that Proposal A includes the rebuilding of a third, currently undetermined, elementary school. It would remain undetermined at the time of the March vote, and would be slated for its rebuild in about five years. (On the project outlines presented last week, Proposal A read “TBD” next to the names of the other two schools.) 

Proposal B, however, only rebuilds Belinder and Rosehill and uses the additional funds from not rebuilding a third elementary school for other projects on the list — including HVAC upgrades the district would need to make anyway and the secondary renovations.

Concerns expressed by board member

Board members discussed the proposals on Monday.

“With regard to Proposal B, I appreciate that it appears to be actually like a more conservative approach because we’re spending money on the HVAC system,” said Board Member Heather Ousley. “We are going to have to spend that money no matter what — it’s timing when we spend it.”

Board Member Jessica Hembree said she’s concerned the community might not approve a bond that includes an elementary rebuild that would be determined after the vote, as in Proposal A. 

“I feel like we’re looking at these bond proposals from the perspective as board members,” Hembree said. “Do these advance the needs of the district? I would argue that they absolutely do. We have plenty of needs as a district to go around.”

“I think it’s appropriate for us to be thinking about what’s going to resonate with voters,” she added. “What keeps going through my head is, ‘How much can we convince voters to vote for an elementary TBD?’”

Hembree said she wants voters to support the bond to help advance the district — and while she believes both proposals can do that, she’s partial to Proposal B, which leaves out the third elementary rebuild.

To watch the board presentation and the discussion that follows on YouTube, click here.

How we got here

Back in 2020, the board of education approved a $750 million vision for bond projects set in three phases over an 18-year period.

Voters approved a $264 million bond measure in 2021, which amounted to phase one of that long-term plan. That 2021 bond vote led to the rebuilding of five elementary schools. 

Phase two is the current bond being considered by the board, and phase three is slated to come in 2032-33.

Superintendent Michael Schumacher said projects not funded in the upcoming bond — like the third elementary school rebuild — could be addressed in the third and final bond phase with voter support. And, since that third school isn’t set to open until 2031 in Proposal A, putting it in a third bond issue would only delay it by 18 to 24 months.

For this latest bond measure, the district presented its initial proposal in March. More details on the projects and an expected timeline came in August, along with the announcement that East Antioch Elementary would be considered for closure. 

The bond proposal outlined in August envisioned closing East Antioch and merging it with Santa Fe Trail Elementary, which would be rebuilt.

However, the community fought against the recommendation. The August meeting was packed with East Antioch parents, students, alumni and community members. Many shared sentiments of how much the school and its community have meant to them, while also sharing frustrations about how quickly they felt the district was moving.

“We were being forced on a timeline that was unreasonable and unacceptable,” East Antioch parent Ian Fannin-Hughes said after the Sept. 14 board meeting. “(By delaying the decision) they have set us on a good path to ask the right questions, get the right answers and find out what is right for the community.”

The board was originally set to vote on East Antioch’s closure at Monday’s meeting.

However, after parent and community pushback, the district decided to pause consideration of the school’s closure, along with talk of other school boundary changes in the SM East and North feeder patterns.

Neither the boundary adjustments nor the closure of East Antioch are off the table, though the timeline on those decisions is currently unknown.

What’s next?

At its Nov. 9 meeting, the board is set to consider which bond proposal of the two to put on the March ballot. 

If voters approve the bond measure, regardless of which proposal it ends up being, work on Belinder and Rosehill elementaries is expected to start next summer, with construction wrapping in the winter of 2028. 

Work on a new career and technical education campus is expected to start in the summer of 2028 and wrap up two years later, in the summer of 2030.

If Proposal A is approved, the third elementary school rebuild is expected to start in the summer of 2029 and wrap up in the summer of 2031.