On May 9 a referendum will be held to determine whether a proposed bond of $498.1 million will be granted to the district. A bond is a document that requires a school district to repay borrowed money on a set future date and to pay semi-annual interest at a rate set on the date of the sale. Each individual school will receive a portion of the bond to use for five factors of growth, technology, renovations, school buses, and safety and security. Should the bond pass, Klein Oak will receive $32,061,100.
“The only way to build schools, the only way to do repairs and these kinds of things to schools is through bond money,” Principal Dr. Brian Greeney said. “You don’t do bond money to hire teachers. There’s a separate side of taxes in the state government that pays for that.”
Most of the $498.1 million will be spent on a new high school in the district. At this point called High School #5, this school will be built near Ulrich Intermediate on Spring Cypress, where the areas along and north of Spring Cypress Road from SH 249 to I-45 are expected to experience the most growth as a result of developments such as the Grand Parkway. The new high school would decrease the amount of t-buildings that are built to accommodate increasing numbers of students, which has continued to rise by over 2%, or 1,300 – 1,600 students, per year.
“We’re growing. You can see all the apartments and houses going up around us, and with those come students,” Greeney said. “What they do is they look at if you’re above 125% capacity, you have to build another school, and we’re there. So we need to build another school. And Klein High, just built, is there. The area’s growing very fast. So I think that’s probably the biggest. People know we need another school. We can’t continue just to keep putting t-buildings out there because we’re out of room.”
The majority of the $32,061,100 granted to the school would go toward renovations, such as redoing the auditorium, which currently seats approximately 600 students. Additional seating arrangements would be added to fit 1,000 people, allowing class meetings to be held inside. There would also be a third gymnasium built and the addition of a dance facility for the fine arts program.
“A new dance facility would allow us to rehearse with more efficiency for our big show in May, our big dance concert,” Mrs. Fayla Curry said. “We wouldn’t have to keep using the auditorium. We’d just be able to do more movement full-on without big groups. With five to six groups it would allow more progress developmentally and choreographically.”
Students who will be 18 years old on or by May 9 (or who are currently 17 years 10 months old) can register to vote by April 9 at https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp. Early voting will be held at each high school in the district from April 27 to May 5. For more information regarding the bond, go to http://www.kleinisd.net/users/Bond2015/bond2015/index.html.