Vote NO · Improve Learning First
A building has never taught a child to read.
As parents and teachers watch student achievement and classroom behavior plummet, USD 259 is prioritizing buildings.
The experiment already ran
$370 million later,
Wichita is further behind.
In 2008, voters approved a bond package for new schools, pools, stadiums and storm shelters. Over that period, students in USD 259 fell further behind their peers across Kansas.
$370 million
Approved in 2008
The package included:
- 2 new high schools
- 2 new K-8 schools
- 4 new or replacement elementary schools
- 6 swimming pools
- football stadiums with all-weather turf
- 60 tornado shelters
The package as it was put to voters in 2008. Source: Ballotpedia, “Wichita school bond election (2008).”
12.6 to 20.1
Points behind Kansas
The Kansas average is the line across the top. Wichita sits below it, and the space between them is the gap — 2014-15 to 2024-25.
Point gap = the Kansas statewide proficiency rate minus the USD 259 rate, Levels 3 and 4, all grades, all students. Source: KSDE Kansas Report Card.
Kansas adopted new cut scores for the 2025 assessment, so 2024-25 is not on the same scale as the years before it. Stopping at 2023-24, before the change, the math gap still grew from 12.62 points to 17.13. There was no spring 2020 assessment.
And in 2029, your school tax was scheduled to go down
Homeowners pay a levy for the 2008 school bonds. Question 1 attaches new debt to that levy instead of sunsetting it in 2029 as planned. “No change to your tax rate” is technically true, but don't mistake it for relief. It extends a levy that was supposed to end.
There's more, though. The district is asking voters to approve $615 million in bonds, split across two ballot questions.
Question 1 — $407.1 million
Question 1 asks for $407.1 million, and the district states that if it passes on its own the property tax rate would remain the same.
It holds the rate flat by issuing new debt as the 2008 bonds retire. While not a new tax, it is a cancellation of scheduled relief.
Question 2 — $207.9 million
Question 2 asks for a further $207.9 million and does raise the tax rate.
The district estimates it would add about $50 a year, or $4.16 a month, to the tax bill on a $200,000 home.
Question 2 can only pass if Question 1 passes.
What Question 1 does to the levy
What you were promised — 2008 to 2029
20082045
What Question 1 does — 2008 to 2045 or later
20082045
Both bars run on the same 2008–2045 scale. Question 1 attaches new debt to the levy that was scheduled to end in 2029. When the district put a smaller bond to voters in 2025, reporting put the levy’s new end date at 2045 or later — sixteen years past the date it was set to come off.
Sources: USD 259 bond information site; KMUW, February 10 2025.
This is only the beginning. . .
They have stated plainly that this would only be the beginning of a much larger and more expensive plan.
- $615M on this ballot, split across two questions.
- $2.07B is the total of the district’s own draft Long-Range Facility Master Plan, presented to the board in June 2024 — $2,071,211,616.
- — This bond is the first of a series of bonds in that plan.
Source: USD 259 Long-Range Facility Master Plan, June 2024.