Post date: Jul 21, 2013 3:36:12 PM
As was done for previous bond issues, the district’s Long Range Facilities Planning Committee, composed of community leaders, parents, and educators, has met regularly since early 2011 to address district facility needs. First they gathered input from each school site and each department about its priority needs, and then the group spent considerable time and effort weighing the options.
After a resulting bond proposal failed to secure sufficient voter approval in February 2012, the committee reconvened and was expanded to include varying viewpoints on the failed issue. Multiple community surveys and focus groups were conducted to gather feedback from both supporters and opponents of the bond issue, while the committee continued to work on the issue of the best grade configuration for grades 6-12.
Eventually the Board of Education voted unanimously to accept the committee’s recommendation to extract some of the smaller, less controversial, and operationally essential portions from the former bond issue for a new vote on August 28, 2012. That proposal was deliberately crafted so that it would NOT tie voters' hands to any particular configuration for grades 6-12, leaving that for a future proposal and vote.
Voters approved that bond issue by almost a 2-to-1 margin. The committee continued to study options for the grades 6-12 configuration. Two community forums were held in February 2013 to share the committee’s work and garner feedback. Later in the spring there was an independently conducted survey of the community. The committee refined its proposal and submitted it to the Bartlesville Board of Education, which voted in late June to put before voters a $36.7 million bond issue to address facilities for grades 6-12 as well as district-wide security upgrades.