The 2012 bond will create thousands of jobs over the next six to eight years as the Houston Independent School District embarks on a $1.89 billion program to repair or replace 38 schools, improve middle school restrooms and provide district-wide upgrades in technology, security, and athletic facilities. Continue reading
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HISD principals react after bond is overwhelmingly approved by voters
A number of HISD principals say students and staff at their schools are celebrating one day after voters approved the Houston Schools Bond.
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Voters Approve HISD Bond Proposition
Measure passes by better than 2-1 margin
Thirty-eight Houston Independent School District campuses, including 28 of the city’s high schools, will be rebuilt or renovated under a bond proposition that won voter approval by better than a 2-1 margin on Tuesday.
The $1.89 billion measure passed with overwhelming support, earning 69 percent voter approval, according to unofficial results tabulated by the Harris County Clerk’s office. More than 312,000 ballots were cast in the election.
“Houston voters sent a message today that all children, regardless of where they live, deserve to attend quality school in quality buildings that offer our great teachers the tools they need to prepare students for a successful future,” said Trustee Michael Lunceford, president of the HISD Board of Education. “The new schools that will be built because of this vote will benefit today’s students, their future children, and even their grandchildren.”
HISD asked voters to consider the bond proposition after an independent evaluation of the district’s facilities showed that the average Houston high school is more than 50 years old and lacks the proper infrastructure to support modern technology and teaching strategies. The evaluation found that the cost of maintaining these deteriorating schools would soon surpass the replacement cost. Past HISD bond measures, including the 2007 plan that was passed with 51 percent of the vote, have focused on the district’s elementary and middle schools.
Because of the large amount of construction included in the 2012 bond proposition, HISD will spread the work out over the next six to eight years. This approach will help control costs and allow the district to gradually phase in a 4.85-cent property tax rate increase over the next five years. The district will soon seek bids from firms interested in performing the architectural design and engineering work on the first batch of projects. The list of school projects to be included in the first phase of construction is being developed with an eye toward breaking ground on at least one project in each geographic district within HISD around the same time. Construction work is expected to begin in 2014. Click here for more details about the 2012 bond package.
“When this work is finished, Houston will boast the most modern portfolio of urban high school campuses in America,” Superintendent Terry Grier said. “For years, HISD has been a national model for other urban school districts that are striving to simultaneously close the achievement gap while raising the level of achievement of all students, including the highest performers. Thanks to Houston’s voters, we will finally have quality campuses to fully support our students’ strong academic progress.”
Projects funded though the bond proposition include:
New campuses for 20 high schools
- Austin
- Bellaire
- Davis
- DeBakey
- Eastwood
- Furr
- High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
- Jordan
- Lamar
- Lee
- Madison
- Milby
- North Early College
- Sam Houston
- Sharpstown
- South Early College
- Sterling
- Washington
- Worthing
- Yates
Partially replacing 4 high schools
- Waltrip
- Young Men’s College Prep Academy
- Westbury
- Young Women’s College Prep Academy
Renovating 4 high schools
- Jones
- Kashmere
- Scarborough
- Sharpstown International
Converting 5 elementary schools into K-8 campuses
- Garden Oaks Montessori
- Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion School at Gordon
- Pilgrim Academy
- Wharton Dual Language School
- Wilson Montessori
Building 3 new elementary school campuses
- Askew
- Parker
- Relief school on the west side
Replacing/completing 2 new middle school campuses
- Grady (new addition to complete new campus)
- Dowling (new campus)
In addition, the bond includes funds that would improve conditions for students in all HISD schools. This includes:
- $100 million for district-wide technology improvements
- $44.7 million to replace regional field houses and improve athletic facilities
- $35 million to renovate middle school restrooms
- $17.3 million for district-wide safety and security improvements
The Board of Education has also agreed to rebuild two schools – Condit Elementary and High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice – either through the sale of surplus district property, or by using any potential leftover bond funds.
Historic neighborhood schools and prestigious schools of choice to be replaced
HISD will now completely rebuild some of Houston’s most historic neighborhood high schools across the city. Some replacement schools will maintain their existing building structures while their interiors are transformed. These schools include Austin, Davis, Lamar, and Milby. The remaining replacement schools, including Yates, Washington, and Lee, will be demolished and replaced with entirely new buildings. New campuses are also in the works for some of HISD’s prestigious specialty schools, including the nationally renowned High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and Eastwood Academy. All three schools made this year’s Children at Risk list of the Houston region’s Top 10 high schools.
The new HSPVA will be built downtown near Houston’s vaunted Theater District on land that HISD already owns at 1300 Capitol. DeBakey, meanwhile, will be relocated to property within the Texas Medical Center.
Each campus included in the bond package will have a Project Advisory Team made up of staff, parents, and community members, who will have input in the design and construction process to ensure that each school’s unique needs are addressed.
New schools to support continued academic achievement
Houston ISD students have made great strides in the classroom over the past several years. Click here to read more about the strong academic progress being made by HISD students.
“We know that what happens inside our classrooms is more important than the physical classrooms themselves. Our work to put effective teachers in every classroom and strong principals in every school is paying off,” Dr. Grier said.
HISD’s dropout and graduation rates are at record levels after four consecutive years of moving in the right direction. Hundreds more Houston students are scoring at the college-ready level on the SAT than at any other time in the district’s history. The same goes for the number of HISD students earning college credit through tough Advanced Placement exams, which is up 45 percent since 2009. And this year, Houston was the only Texas school district to be among the four finalists for the nation’s most prestigious education award: the Broad Prize for Urban Education.
Houston Schools Bond Twitter Town Hall
Superintendent Terry Grier will answer questions today at 10 a.m.
HISD Superintendent Terry Grier will provide information and answer questions about the Houston Schools Bond during the district’s first-ever Twitter Town Hall. The event will be held today at 10 a.m. on the district’s main Twitter account, @HoustonISD. Students from Davis, Furr, Sam Houston, Bellaire, Worthing, Yates, Lamar, Lee, and Sharpstown High Schools plan to participate. Their schools would be rebuilt under the bond proposition, which is the last item on the General Election ballot. To join the discussion, send tweets during the event to @HoustonISD with the hashtag #HISDBond.
HISD Hosting Phone Bank on Univision 45 to Provide Information on Bond
In an effort to reach out to eligible voters across the city and provide them information on the HISD 2012 bond proposal, which is the last item on the ballot, the Houston Independent School District is hosting a bond information phone bank on Univision 45.
Dozens of experts on the HISD bond proposition will be on hand to take calls from viewers on Monday, October 29 from 7 to 10:30 p.m.
Tune in to Univision 45 for the HISD Bond phone bank and hear from principals and parents talk about the needs of their schools and current campus conditions.
Volunteers include HISD school improvement officers, principals and administrators. The purpose of this phone bank is to ensure that all Houston voters are well informed on the 2012 HISD bond proposal when they go to the polling sites.
There will be bilingual volunteers ready to take your calls in English or Spanish. For more information on the HISD Bond, call the phone bank on Monday, October 29 from 7 to 10:30 pm at 713 390-5956.
HISD’s $1.89 billion plan would rebuild or renovate 38 schools across the city and help improve conditions for students in all HISD schools, if approved by voters on November 6.
For more information on the HISD bond, visit www.houstonisd.org/2012bond.
Early voting begins today: Houstonians cast their votes
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| Don’t miss your chance to vote on the 2012 Houston Schools Bond Proposition – it’s at the very end of the ballot. |
| • See polling locations, hours and more |
Early voting for the November 6 General Election is underway in Houston and across Texas. As of mid-day, 17,372 people had cast their ballot in Harris County, which is on pace with turnout reported during the same period of the 2008 presidential election.
In addition to the race for president, there are a number of local races and measures on the ballot, including the Houston Schools Bond. The $1.89 billion proposition is the very last item on the ballot. It would rebuild or renovate 38 schools in neighborhoods across Houston, upgrade technology across the district, renovate middle school restrooms, fund safety and security improvements, and upgrade regional field houses and athletic facilities.
Graduates from Austin High School were among the first people to vote at the Metropolitan Multi-Services Center on West Gray. Jill Mussman, a parent of an HISD graduate, also voted early at that polling location.
“I’m here so I don’t have to stand in line on Election Day,” she said.
Early voting runs from today until November 2. To see a list of polling places, visit harrisvotes.com.
After you cast your vote, send a “vote early” photo to hisdphotos@yahoo.com
Schools get creative in getting out the vote
Schools across the district are getting into the voting spirit with campus-based campaigns to raise awareness about Election Day and the opportunity to vote early, from Oct. 22 through Nov. 2.
Voters will not only be choosing a new president this election but will decide whether to approve HISD’s $1.89 billion bond proposition that would focus on rebuilding and modernizing the city’s high schools, as well as provide safety and technology upgrades across the district.
At Hobby Elementary School, parents and students decorated the campus in red, white and blue colors to promote voting. Principal Stephen Gittens says the goal was to build awareness about the importance of casting a ballot.
“We’ve sent home fliers, we’ve done call-outs, we’ve shared information with our PTOs,” said Gittens, whose school enrolls 834 elementary students in southwest Houston.
Roosevelt Elementary celebrates official dedication
Near the finale of Wednesday’s official dedication ceremony for Theodore Roosevelt Elementary, at least one parent in the crowd let out a grito — a celebratory yell — during the final performance of a visiting mariachi band comprised of students.
It certainly wasn’t the only rave review at the school this morning.
Roosevelt Elementary, a Vanguard school for gifted and talented students, opened the doors to its new campus building in late November 2011, more than 80 years after the school originally opened.
The two-story school serves about 750 students, and most, if not all of them, Roosevelt principal Armando Lujan said, really enjoy learning with the new technology the school now uses.
“The students love this building,” he said. “They love the SMART boards, they love the technology. They love the fact that we are able to broadcast news over the SMART boards.”
During the celebration, attendees were entertained by three different musical groups, including songs by the school’s Pre-K students and its new choir team, as well as bookended performances by the mariachi band from Jefferson Davis High School.
Inside the school, students have access to a central library and large multi-purpose room, one Lujan said was nearly unusable in the old school. The design of the school allows for more natural light inside the hallways and classrooms, results in a nearly 20 percent reduction in energy use from the previous building.
“It’s come a long way,” said Mary Morales, president of the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization and mother to two students currently at Roosevelt. “It’s like the best thing they could give these kids nowadays that we didn’t have when we were younger.
“It’s wonderful,” she said. “It helps (students) out a lot more. It expands their minds a lot more. I remember when I was little, I wasn’t doing projects. Now they are.”
The school was built with approximately $16.5 million from the bond program approved by voters in 2007. Roosevelt is one of 20 new schools built with funds from that bond program.
HISD Board of Education Calls Election to Rebuild Houston’s High Schools
Houston voters will decide in November whether to approve a bond referendum to modernize outdated high school buildings and build new schools to meet students’ needs across the city.
The HISD Board of Education approved calling an election on the bond proposal by a vote of 8-1. Trustee Greg Meyers voted against the proposal.
The proposal seeks voter approval of a $1.89 billion plan to address the most serious facility needs in 38 schools. The proposal would:
Provide new campuses for 20 high schools
- Austin
- Bellaire
- Davis
- DeBakey
- Eastwood
- Furr
- High School for the Performing and Visual Arts
- Jordan
- Lamar
- Lee
- Madison
- Milby
- North Early College
- Sam Houston
- Sharpstown
- South Early College
- Sterling
- Washington
- Worthing
- Yates
Partially replace 4 high schools
- Waltrip
- Young Men’s College Prep Academy
- Westbury
- Young Women’s College Prep Academy
Renovate 4 high schools
- Jones
- Kashmere
- Scarborough
- Sharpstown International
Convert 5 elementary schools into K-8 campuses
- Garden Oaks Montessori
- Mandarin Chinese Language Immersion School at Gordon
- Pilgrim Academy
- Wharton Dual Language School
- Wilson Montessori
Build 3 new elementary school campuses
- Askew
- Parker
- Relief school on the west side
Replace/complete 2 new middle school campuses
- Grady (new addition to complete new campus)
- Dowling (new campus)
In addition, the proposed measure would include funds that would improve conditions for students in all HISD schools. Those proposals include:
- $100 million for district-wide technology improvements
- $44.7 million to replace regional field houses and improve athletic facilities
- $35 million to renovate middle school restrooms
- $17.3 million for district-wide safety and security improvements
The Board of Education also agreed to rebuild two schools – Condit Elementary and High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice – either through the sale surplus district property, or by using any potential leftover bond funds.
If approved by voters, design work of the new schools would begin in early 2013 and the first construction projects would start in 2014.
While including millions of dollars in recommended projects that would benefit students at all 279 schools in the district, the proposed bond package focuses heavily — $1.36 billion — on the city’s high schools. HISD’s most recent bond programs approved by voters in 1998, 2002 and 2007 primarily addressed needs at the elementary school level. The average age of HISD secondary schools now stands at 50 years, compared to 39 years for the district’s primary schools.
Many of these schools were designed to meet the needs of students more than half a century ago and are no longer able to accommodate the best instructional approaches for helping today’s students meet rising academic expectations, according to independent school facilities experts who recently assessed HISD schools.
Modern schools feature design elements that are shown to positively impact student achievement. Some of these elements include:
- Greater classroom configuration flexibility to help teachers differentiate their approaches to meet the needs of each child
- Classroom designs that encourage collaborative learning
- Improved access to technology
- Infrastructure for the latest career and technical education programs
- Lab spaces that offer hands-on science learning
Historic neighborhood schools and prestigious schools of choice to be replaced
The proposed bond package would completely rebuild some of Houston’s most historic neighborhood high schools across the city. The proposal also includes new campuses for some of HISD’s prestigious specialty schools, including the nationally renowned High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, DeBakey High School for Health Professions, and Eastwood Academy. All three schools made this year’s Children at Risk list of the Houston region’s Top 10 high schools.
The new HSPVA would be built downtown near Houston’s vaunted Theater District on land that HISD already owns at 1300 Capitol. HISD is working on an agreement that would allow the district to build DeBakey on property within the Texas Medical Center.
Exteriors of architecturally important schools to remain
The bond proposal recognizes the importance of protecting the character of some of HISD’s historic neighborhood high schools. Some new schools will maintain their existing building structures while their interiors are transformed. These schools include Austin, Davis, Lamar, and Milby.
Some of the schools recommended for major construction work are among those that had renovations under the 2007 bond program. In many of those cases, the previously completed work will be incorporated into the new building design.
Even with the many projects included in the bond proposal, HISD schools still have many additional facility needs that remain unaddressed. Those needs will be identified as HISD moves forward with developing a comprehensive long-range capital improvement plan.
Property tax implications
Because of the district’s strong fiscal management practices, HISD has been able to maintain the lowest property tax rate of the 20-plus school districts in Harris County. In addition, HISD is among the few districts in Texas that offer an optional 20 percent homestead exemption on top of the standard $15,000 exemption that other school districts offer.
If an election is called, and voters approve the bond package, HISD would likely adopt a property tax rate increase in the future. This tax rate increase would have no impact on the homesteads of HISD residents age 65 and older, because their tax rates are frozen.
HISD anticipates gradually phasing in a tax rate increase that in 2017 would reach a maximum of 4.85 cents per $100 of taxable value. For the owner of the average HISD home with a market value of $198,936, this would mean a monthly cost of $5.83, or $70 per year beginning in 2017. Under this estimate, the property tax rate would increase by 1 penny in 2014, another penny in 2016, and 2.85 cents in 2017.
This estimated tax rate impact is lower than previously estimated. There are two primary reasons for the revised estimate:
- HISD’s certified 2013 tax roll has increased since the initial estimate was made.
- A projected 1 percent annual increase in HISD property values through 2028.
School construction and renovation work approved by HISD voters in 2007 is nearing completion under budget. When the school year begins later this month, HISD will have opened 20 new or replacement schools under that bond program, 2 more new schools are under construction, and 2 are in the planning stage. More than 100 HISD campuses have undergone renovations so far. Click here for more detailed information about the work completed under the 2007 bond program.
HISD Board of Education to vote on 2012 Bond Proposal
Following weeks of consideration, the HISD Board of Education is expected to vote on calling a referendum for the 2012 bond proposal at its scheduled meeting on Thursday, August 9.
The proposal, totaling $1.89 billion, would provide funding for construction at 38 schools, including 28 high schools that would be rebuilt, renovated or remodeled, as well as other districtwide projects. The bond proposal item to be presented to the board can be viewed on page 23 of the board agenda (PDF).
More information about the bond proposal, documentation used in the proposal and community surveys about the district’s schools can be found on our main website. For those unable to attend the board meeting at 5 p.m. in the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center, you can watch it live online or on HISD TV.
As of today, there are only 90 days until Election Day. If you’ve yet to register to vote, you can find more information about registering and download an application at the Harris County Tax Office’s website.