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Cedar Rapids school bond referendum narrowly fails voter approval
‘We’ll try again. Our kids deserve it,’ Cedar Rapids school board President Cindy Garlock says
Nov. 4, 2025 11:39 pm
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CEDAR RAPIDS — The refrain of advocates for Cedar Rapids schools multimillion dollar school bond referendum Tuesday night as election results trickled in was “unofficial results.”
Unofficial results show the $117 million referendum narrowly failing by less than 1 percent — fewer than 200 votes short of approval. The referendum received just over 59 percent approval but requires a supermajority of 60 percent to pass.
“We’re going to keep coming back,” Superintendent Tawana Grover said at a press conference Tuesday night. “We need our schools to be safe and secure, we need accessibility, we need modern learning environments. With the efforts that you showed, we know you believe that too.”
The referendum would have funded facility improvements at four schools in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, including safety and accessibility upgrades and creating classrooms for 21st Century learners, school leaders say.
“The results are showing unofficially that we’re coming up short, but what I would say is that we did not come up short when it came to the efforts and support for the Cedar Rapids Community School District,” Grover said.
School leaders and advocates for the bond focused on how they changed the tide of public opinion compared to a $220 million school bond referendum that failed voter approval by more than 60 percent in November 2023.
“We always knew this was going to be a big challenge, especially starting from where we were two years ago. We made tremendous progress, moved the number in the school district’s favor, but we’re just a few votes short, said Ron Corbett, vice president of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance. Corbett helped guide a Believe in CR Schools campaign, which advocated for people to vote “yes” for the bond.
“We came about as close as you can, but the 60 percent threshold is a mighty high bar for school districts. It really hurts to come this close,” Corbett said.
“We’ll try again. Our kids deserve it,” said Cindy Garlock, president of the Cedar Rapids school board.
“On one hand, we have increased the ‘yes’ votes, so that’s something to celebrate. Obviously, it’s disappointing to not have the bond passed. We will regroup. We’ll try to get to the bottom of the ‘no’ votes and pull a task force together again and see if we can come up with a plan that the public can support. At the end of the day, the needs remain,” Garlock said.
Garlock said she doesn’t know what more the school district and Believe in CR Schools could have done to gain voter approval for the bond.
“We had a lot of stakeholders as part of the task force. They looked at the data, we did two rounds of surveys to the public. We thought we had the right vision based on the public feedback we had received, so I think we did everything,” Garlock said.
Barbra Solberg, chair of the Believe in CR Schools campaign, said the district is “moving in the right direction.”
“Times are tough right now. No one wants to pay higher taxes, nobody wants to pay more for anything. It’s hard to dissect what voters are thinking right now. There will be time for that,” Solberg said.
“We always knew this was going to be a really, really difficult campaign based on all our polling, all the feedback. We tried to listen to voters,” she said.
What did people say at the polls?
For 84-year-old retiree Mimi Welty, voting is simply a civic duty. She cast her ballot Tuesday at the Ladd Library polling site on Williams Boulevard SW in Cedar Rapids, saying she makes it a point to vote “every time there’s any issue or anything to vote on.”
She voted yes on the bond referendum, noting that while the property tax impact concerns her as someone on a fixed income, she believes the upgrades are overdue. “I’m not happy about the property tax impact,” Welty said. “But I feel like it’s important that the schools be accommodating to people with disabilities and have good access. You have to keep things up to date.”
Welty said she voted “no” on the previous bond proposal, feeling it lacked clarity. This time, however, she said district leaders did a better job explaining their plans. “Last time, I didn’t think they were that clear about what they were going to do,” she said. “I thought they did a better job this time of explaining what they were going to use it for.”
John Wagner, 71, voted against the Cedar Rapids school bond referendum Tuesday, casting his ballot at the Northwest Recreation Center.
"I don't like the plan to have all these students massed in one place," Wagner said. "There's so much money being spent on buildings and there needs to be more money spent on the children and more emphasis on discipline."
"The kids aren't learning well enough in my opinion. Putting a big building around it is not going to make it any better," said Wagner, who retired four years ago from almost a decade of driving a school bus for the College Community School District.
"We got to figure out how to make it, so students can be successful, and they're not successful now," Wagner said.
Mary Beth McGuire, 67, of Cedar Rapids, said she always votes.
She cast her ballot at Lovely Lane United Methodist Church late Tuesday morning voting in favor of the school bond referendum, said McGuire, retired from the Cedar Rapids Public Library.
"Our schools need help. I can't believe Kennedy (High School) doesn't have a dishwasher," McGuire said.
McGuire also mentioned the importance of the bond funding projects that would bring schools into compliance with the ADA standards.
"It's a sad commentary on our society when a school can't accommodate," she said.
Sam and Sue Benjamin voted "yes" for the school bond referendum at Lovely Lane United Methodist Church.
"Schools need all the help they can get," said Sam, 72.
Sam said it's important to him that the bond goes toward modernizing historic schools rather than new construction.
"Children are our future. I used to work for the school system … I've been gone since 2002, but I know the importance of good facilities and adequate support over and above for our kids," said Sue, 68.
Jane Walter, 77, voted "yes" for the Cedar Rapids school bond referendum Tuesday at the Northwest Recreation Center in Cedar Rapids.
"The schools need improvements," Walter said. "I'd rather see these schools improved than build big, beautiful, new buildings that take so much more money. It's sensible."
Walter said her grandsons are in Cedar Rapids schools, and the buildings are "disgraceful."
Walter said she did not vote for the 2023 school bond referendum — which failed voter approval — that would have supported different facility projects.
"No one I talked to felt comfortable with it. This one is specific. It names the schools and what needs to be done. I just felt there's no other way except to vote 'yes' on this," Walter said.
What was included in the plan?
The plan included renovations to four schools in the Cedar Rapids district:
- $25 million to renovate Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy, a middle school in northwest Cedar Rapids, to address school safety and operational efficiency issues and to accommodate students from Wilson Middle School, which would become an elementary school;
- $45 million to renovate McKinley STEAM Academy, a middle school in southeast Cedar Rapids;
- $35 million to renovate Wilson Middle School into an elementary school that would house Cedar River Academy and Grant Elementary, which would be removed from the district’s inventory;
- And $12 million for renovations at Kennedy High School to address crowding in the cafeteria and common areas and adapt space for new freshman programming.
Tom Barton of The Gazette contributed to this report.
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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