What are key projects in this bond issue?

This bond advances the excellence established by previous bond issues, focusing on familiar areas for which the school district must rely on voter-approved bonds.

• Technology (23%)

Voters have approved bond funding for the district's technology hardware and software for years.

• Chromebooks

  • Established excellence: The 2016 bond funded a Student Computing Initiative to provide modern, inexpensive devices for students. Chromebooks are now supplied for use at school and at home to high school students, and in August middle school students will also receive the devices. These are used for digital assignments and textbooks. Math students have enjoyed tailored video lessons to enhance teachers' classroom instruction and all classes can offer more interactive homework with better feedback. Chromebook carts are now available in every elementary school so that students no longer have to troop down to scheduled time in a computer lab.

• Facility Projects (21%)

  • The district was an outlier among 6A districts in not providing an agriculture program. That is being remedied: an experienced agriculture teacher has been hired, and over 100 students have enrolled in introductory agriculture classes at the two middle schools and high school for 2019-2020. The agriculture program will need classrooms with attached shop space at Bartlesville High School.

• • Advancing excellence: The 2019 bond will maintain the Chromebooks checkout programs in 2021-22 and 2022-23 while refreshing the Chromebook and iPad carts in the elementary schools used for STEM modules, a wide variety of individualized learning services, and more.

• Electronic Whiteboards

  • Established excellence: Bond issues over a decade ago equipped every elementary classroom with an electronic whiteboard and projector. Those devices have been a revolution for interactive teaching. But the devices are reaching the end of their life spans, with many relying on electronic pens that are no longer manufactured.

• • The new turf at Custer Stadium, funded by proceeds from the 2016 bond issue, has renewed that facility and created a safer play area for the athletes. The 2019 bond would turf the infields at Doenges Memorial Stadium and the softball field near Madison to reduce maintenance and improve play.

  • Each school site would receive additional furnishings identified as top needs.

  • Since it was built 15 years ago, the Fine Arts Center Auditorium at Bartlesville HIgh School has hosted countless school and community events. The 2019 bond would install an electric orchestra pit lift. The current pit cover and framework takes a full day for district maintenance workers to put up or take down. An electric lift would improve the beautiful facilities functionality and be safer for all concerned.

  • Central Middle School & Ranch Heights Elementary School have parking area and traffic flow needs that would be addressed.

  • All school sites would be equipped with a corridor dispenser for water bottles along with the traditional drinking fountains.

• Maintenance (19%)

  • Our schools range from 34 to over 100 years old, so they demand regular maintenance. The bond would fund improvements at every site, including:

    • replace the original elevators at Bartlesville High School and at Madison Middle School

    • repair broken cafeteria serving line heating units at Madison, and update the areas still on the half-century-old steam heat system

    • replace the auditorium curtains at Bartlesville High School, Central Middle School, and Madison Middle School, and replace carpeting at the 15-year-old Fine Arts Center at the high school

    • playground equipment for Central, Hoover, Jane Phillips, and Woodrow Wilson schools

    • HVAC updates at Hoover

    • and much more

• Curriculum (17%)

  • Purchase textbooks for two academic years, which are physical books for elementary students and electronic textbooks for secondary students with Chromebooks

• • Advancing excellence: The 2019 bond will replace all of the elementary school electronic whiteboards with large modern touchscreen monitors. These are brighter than the projector systems, students and teachers don't cast shadows on them, and they respond to fingertips or pens. They will be fully compatible with the countless lessons our teachers have developed with the existing whiteboards.

• Software and Services

  • Bond issues now fund almost all software and services used in the district. That includes:

    • the PowerSchool software that provides the gradebooks, attendance, and much more

    • the Canvas learning management system used by secondary students for digital assignments, which is also used at OU, OSU, and many other universities

    • a wide variety of individualized learning tools for students, including Star, Study Island, Reading Eggs, Math Seeds, etc.

    • the district's financial software and other critical infrastructure

• Network infrastructure

  • The district's network appliances, switches, cabling, wireless access points, etc. need to be replaced at regular intervals to provide the services students, teachers, and staff expect and deserve.

• • Fund STEM and science equipment to maintain the district's award-winning PLTW Distinguished School STEM programs at the high school and both middle schools, maintain the elementary STEM program that was initially implemented by community donations, and continue to renew hands-on laboratory equipment and appliances for the district's secondary science classes

  • Intervention software tailored to help students who struggle to master state standards

  • Library books and software

• Safety & Security (5%)

  • Refresh the LobbyGuard secure entry kiosks as they reach a decade of use

  • Refresh all building cameras and increase coverage throughout each school's corridors and public areas

  • Provide crosswalk warning lights at key locations, update exterior doors, reinforce some refuge area windows, add classroom door lockdown shades

• Activities (3%)

  • Annual funding for fine arts instruments, uniforms, stage platforms and risers, storage, etc.

  • Annual funding for athletics equipment, uniforms, etc.

AND, VOTED ON AS A SEPARATE ISSUE PER STATE LAW:

• Transportation (10%)

  • Replace 13 route buses that will be over a decade old to improve the fleet's efficiency, reliability, and safety

  • Replace one special needs bus and a few other vehicles