What are the options for Cedar Rapids schools’ next possible multimillion bond referendum?

CEDAR RAPIDS — A new version of school bond referendum that would finance renovation to Cedar Rapids schools and new construction is one step closer to being brought to district voters in November 2025.

A Future Ready Facilities Task Force has helped school officials create several options for a referendum, ranging in cost from $177 to $189 million — less than a $220 million bond issue that voters rejected in November 2023. The new options will be presented to the community in a survey expected to be mailed to about 60,000 voters this winter.

A final plan would be presented to the Cedar Rapids school board this spring for approval before it could be taken to voters in the school district in November 2025.

In Iowa, school bond issues — basically, loans that schools take out typically for 10, 15 or 20 years — require a supermajority of 60 percent to pass. In passing bond issues, voters in the district agree to repay the loan, with interest, through their property taxes.

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Chad Schumacher, director of operations for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, said officials want to gather input and be transparent as they work toward a proposal.

The district sent out a similar survey earlier this year that garnered responses from more than 9,000 residents after voters said “no” to the $220 million bond referendum. About 71 percent of people who responded to the survey said the primary reason they voted “no” was because it was too expensive and the tax impact was too large.

Options for a proposed bond referendum

While not every one of these projects would be included in a proposed bond referendum, options for projects include:

The proposed projects would help “right-size” the district by reducing the number of schools in its inventory as the district grapples with declining enrollment and funding. Reducing the number of elementary and middle schools in the district is expected to decrease operational costs and address uneven distribution of resources.

The goal is for students in the same elementary schools to continue to the same middle school and eventually to the same high school as their classmates — creating a more cohesive learning experience. This also reduces operational costs by reducing the number of school buildings and building new or renovating schools with older heating and air conditioning and mechanical systems.

Schumacher said the intention is for every school in the district to be renovated or newly built by 2040.

The district’s 19 elementary schools provide 8,451 seats, but serve only 6,591 students, costing the district $16.8 million a year to maintain the empty seats. The three middle schools provide 4,744 seats but serve 3,104 students, costing the district $13.4 million a year to maintain empty space, Schumacher said.

What’s the task force?

The Future Ready Facilities Task Force began meeting in August to develop a new facility plan and determine next steps toward a possible bond referendum.

More than 80 community members, business leaders and school staff were invited to be on the task force, which met monthly. The meetings had an average attendance of between 40 to 50 people, with new members joining each meeting, Schumacher said.

Task force members received information gathered by architects from Shive-Hattery and MA+ who in March toured all 32 schools in the Cedar Rapids district, assessing the buildings and the ways students and teachers use them for learning.

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Documents provided to the task force over the last five months are available online at crschools.us/departments/operations/building-grounds/bond-task-force-committee.

“The task force has helped us dive into the data, hear different perspective and allow us to look at things that might not have been something we would have seen otherwise,” Schumacher said.

If needed, four additional task force meetings are scheduled for Jan. 14, Feb. 11, March 11 and April 8.

What does the task force say?

Janet Henry, who has two students in the Cedar Rapids district, said a bond referendum is needed to “fix some of these schools.” The Future Ready Facilities Task Force is the third facilities task force that Henry has served on since 2018.

“I have a financial background. As it stands today, we can’t continue with the number of buildings we have,” Henry said during a meeting Tuesday at Harding Middle School.

Henry said the district has to be transparent with the public about its finances and student enrollment. “I hate to compare it to running a business, but you kind of are,” she said. “You only have so much money, and you have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure we’re meeting the needs of students. But how do you stay cutting-edge?”

She worries about another bond referendum being rejected by voters, especially as some parents question a plan for a launching a new College & Career Pathways program for ninth-graders next fall.

“The biggest thing is it had already set sail before parents heard about it. We’re sitting here scratching our heads saying, ”What is this program and how is it going to impact my student?“ said Henry, who has a sixth-grader at Taft Middle School and a junior at Jefferson High School.

Even so, Henry said she believes the pathways program is a good idea, but she’s “puzzled” about how it will unfold. Getting parents on board with that program is going to be key in passing the bond referendum, she said.

Sara Williams, another parent on the task force, agrees a bond is needed but the pathways program will influence the way people vote.

“I want to make sure we’re getting the right projects into it, so it passes next time,” said Williams, who has an eighth-grader at Franklin Middle School and a fourth-grader at Pierce Elementary School. “My tax money is going to pay for this.”

Williams said she wants to ensure the bond proposal addresses students from all areas of the community with different socioeconomic backgrounds. “I want to make sure we’re not forgetting them,” she said.

It’s also will be important to get the support of the Cedar Rapids City Council for the bond vote to be successful, Williams said. “Beyond parents and students, we have to think about the broader community. How do we convince them this is the right thing?” she said.

Kelle Kolkmeier, a task force member and retired Cedar Rapids teacher, said the district has been “unbelievably and historically poor at communicating with the community. It’s just astounding because that’s what education is supposed to be, is communicating ideas and critical thinking.”

But a bond is needed Kolkmeier said. “We can’t just keep throwing away this level of money every year” on inefficient buildings, she said.

Why Kennedy High School?

One of the options that could be included in a proposed bond referendum would be renovating the common areas at Kennedy High School — including an expansion to the cafeteria and kitchen — and building a Freshman Academy there for $12 million.

College & Career Pathways will launch next fall at Kennedy, Jefferson and Washington high schools with Freshman Academies designed to connect students to smaller learning environments where they can explore career interests.

Ninth-graders will take core classes in the subjects of math, science, language arts and social studies in addition to a new “freshman seminar” aimed at preparing students for high school and life.

Plans to construct Freshman Academies at Jefferson and Washington high schools already are underway. To fund the projects, the district is leveraging $30 million from its Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, an existing capital projects fund. An additional $30 million from Secure An Advanced Vision for Education, an existing statewide sales tax, also is being set aside to fund infrastructure for college and career learning.

New middle school to replace Harding

Another possible project under a bond referendum would be to build a new middle school on the northeast side of Cedar Rapids that would replace Harding Middle School. Building a new middle school is estimated to cost $90 million.

School officials are in conversations with a private landowner to purchase 50 acres on the northeast side of town within the Cedar Rapids city limits. The purchase agreement could be on an upcoming Cedar Rapids school board meeting this winter.

A larger middle school building on the northeast side would create room to adjust the attendance zones of other middle schools to create a “true” feeder system, with those students feeding into the new northeast side middle school, Schumacher said.

This could eventually open up Franklin Middle School, also in the northeast quadrant, to be repurposed by the district, for example.

One idea is for Metro High School — an alternative school in the district — to move into Franklin. Currently, Metro students are in a building in southeast Cedar Rapids originally built as an elementary school.

“Metro has done a fantastic job of making do in an elementary building,” Cedar Rapids district’s building and grounds manager Chris Gates said during a facilities meeting Tuesday. Gates said they students have outgrown the current space, and he likes the idea of moving them to Franklin, which was initially built as a high school.

The current Metro High School building would then be removed from the district’s inventory to help reduce costs, Schumacher said.

This also would continue to preserve Franklin, one of the district’s most historic schools, which celebrated its centennial in May.

In addition to the Metro programming, Franklin also could be a space for the district’s Transition Center, which provides opportunities for students with disabilities — aged 18 to 21 — who have completed four years of high school and continue to qualify for services and supports in the areas of living, learning and working.

Harding would be removed from the district’s inventory, but the potential future of the building has not been decided.

Renovating Wilson and McKinley

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More options being considered are renovating Wilson Middle School for $36 million or adding an addition to and renovating McKinley STEAM Academy, a middle school in the district, for $51 million. Both of these options would be an investment for the district in historic school buildings while addressing infrastructure deficiencies, Schumacher said.

Under the option to renovate Wilson, the school could be changed into an elementary school that would replace two elementary schools and combine them into one attendance area.

If Wilson is renovated and repurposed into an elementary school, that would reduce the number of middle schools that feed into Jefferson High from three to two, Schumacher said. This would get the district closer to its goal of having one middle school that feeds into each of the primary high schools — Kennedy, Jefferson and Washington.

Building a new elementary school

One of the other options being considered is to build a new elementary school. Several options were presented for what elementary schools this could replace, including:

No location for a new elementary school was discussed.

What happens to Harrison Elementary School?

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The Cedar Rapids school board approved a plan in August to renovate and build an addition onto Harrison Elementary School in northwest Cedar Rapids. The project will be funded by the SAVE sales tax, Schumacher said. The estimated cost is $33 million.

This decision was a reversal from an initial determination last year to raze the historic school and build a new facility on its site. The board revisited that plan this summer after a survey commissioned by the district showed the decision to close Harrison swayed some voters to oppose the 2023 bond referendum.

Construction on Harrison Elementary is planned to begin in October 2025, and completed in July 2027. During construction, students at Harrison Elementary would learn at neighboring Madison Elementary School.

The district adopted a plan to address its aging elementary school buildings in 2018. That facilities plan included building 10 new elementary schools and renovating three over the next 15 to 20 years. The process included the closure and repurposing of eight schools.

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Under the plan, the Cedar Rapids district constructed and opened West Willow Elementary School in August 2021, which replaced Coolidge Elementary. Maple Grove Elementary School was the second school to open under the plan, replacing Jackson Elementary in August 2022. In August, Trailside Elementary School opened to students, replacing both Arthur and Garfield elementary schools.

Earlier this year, the school board also approved a resolution to construct two new elementary school buildings on the Hoover Elementary School and Van Buren Elementary School sites funded by SAVE.

Other elementary schools across the district would continue to be addressed through a plan created in 2018 funded by SAVE. Some of the options today are:

Possible tax impact of a bond referendum

The bond options would increase the school district’s property tax rate between $1.50 to $2.70 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, if approved by voters.

The Cedar Rapids district’s current property tax levy rate is $13.90 per $1,000 of taxable valuation — the lowest rate of neighboring Eastern Iowa school districts. For a homeowner with a $200,000 home, the property tax bill for schools now is $1,288 per year, or $107.33 a month.

The tax rate of the College Community School District is $16.60 per $1,000 of taxable valuation. In the Linn-Mar Community School District, the tax rate is $17.99 per $1,000 in taxable valuation, for example.

Iowa's rollback rate limits the taxable effects of property assessments. The Iowa Department of Revenue sets a rollback rate for each property class each year.

A homeowner with a house assessed at $175,000, using the new rollback rate of nearly 47.4 percent, would be taxed on $83,005 of the value. Taking into account homestead credits — which further reduces the taxable value of the property — and senior exemptions for those eligible, an owner of a $175,000 home could see an additional annual tax of $143.31, or $11.94 a month, if a bond is approved, Schumacher said.

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