Kleinforall.com recommendation:

Vote NO and ask Klein ISD to take a TIME OUT.

There is a lot of opposition to the current Bond Proposal from areas all over the district, and for good reason. The plan does not have a consistent story, lacks transparency, fails to relieve overcrowding in high growth areas of the district and fails to deliver justification for the size of this Bond and particular projects.

There is no argument that the district is growing and we need to build and repair schools, but this plan fails to relieve overcrowding. In fact, the plan includes spending $4M on new and existing Portable Buildings.

The district has operated beyond practical capacity for many years now. Practical Capacity is defined by the Population & Survey Analyst (PASA) Report, section 4, to be 90% of rated capacity. Considering that 5% of the student population is currently taking classes in some 100 Portable Buildings scattered throughout campuses across the district, we are operating beyond practical capacity.

The current High School plan provides for 18,000 seats of capacity by the year 2013 at a cost of $290M. The problem here is that we are projected to have less than 15,000 High School students enrolled in the fall of 2013. We need to make a choice to either add-on to Klein Oak and Klein Collins for $27M or build a new High School for $130M. We do not need to do both to solve our capacity issue. The KISD Plan is to do both and rebuild Klein High School (which adds no capacity to the district) for a total cost of $290M. This does not make sense from a capacity perspective or a financial one.

No engineering or architectural recommendation to tear down and rebuild Klein High exists. Due to the high cost of the High School Plan we are left with little money to relieve overcrowding in elementary and intermediate schools. While they are doing too much for High School capacity, they do too little for Elementary School Capacity as the current plan is projected to leave us in an overcrowded condition.

The plan is unfair in the way they intend to deploy the laptop computers. Whether you agree with the idea of purchasing laptops for students or not, we should be able to agree that they be distributed fairly. The current plan is to provide laptops to a portion of the intermediate schools, but not all. Doerre, Hildebrandt and Strack are some of the schools that will not receive laptops on this bond proposal, but they will be attending Klein Oak along side of students from Krimmel who will have been working on the technology for 3 years.

In a recent Houston Chronicle article, a report was published ranking Houston High Schools according to criteria like TAKS test scores, Graduation Rates and SAT scores. Klein High is the only KISD High School to appear in the top tier out of 4 tiers. KISD had one High School in each of the other tiers. It would seem that our focus should be more on parity for educational opportunity rather than for building facilities.

How did these recommendations get made? The steering committee was made up of 55% School Administrators, 20% Community leaders (friends of the district) and 25% Parents. The people who are asking for the money are the same ones who were building the plan. That is a conflict of interest. To hear another Steering Committee member’s point of view, visit www.kleinadvocate.com. The fact is that the steering committee had very little to do with reducing the bond from the original $800M+ price tag down to the $650M price. KISD Officials announced to the steering committee that they had lowered the enrollment projections which caused a significant reduction in the bond. While they lowered the building plan for Elementary schools, they left the High school plan in tact. There was no discussion on this. The proof is in the meeting minutes.

The bottom line is that there is a lack of justification for the teardown and rebuild of Klein High, we are building too much High School capacity, we will continue to be overcrowded in elementary schools, we continue to invest in portable buildings, and we discriminate amongst the intermediate schools with the laptop roll out plan. The KISD Administration clearly needs more time to develop a plan that has justification, a plan that makes financial sense, a plan that takes care of the overcrowding issues at the elementary school level. Vote no and force KISD to take a time out.

If this Bond is voted down, it will not impact the current operations of the district. This Bond is for buildings, repairs and technology investments. If voted down, KISD can develop a new bond plan to be ready for the November ballot. Voting no is just the beginning. We need to change the way buildings are assessed, we need formal engineering reports, we need a better strategy for combating overcrowding, we need competitive bidding on school construction and laptops, a steering committee that represents the desires of parents and taxpayers, and much more. In short, we need to get involved and we need to be organized. Please go to the polls May 10th and VOTE NO for the KISD bond. Klein needs a time out!

Visit us at www.kleinforall.com.