Bonding with the school district

By Amy Geiszler-Jones

History faculty member Keith Pickus stands in front of the Wichita elementary school his children attend. Pickus, who has high praise for the quality of education in Wichita’s public schools, has been an active volunteer in USD 259’s bond issue campaign.

If Keith Pickus, assistant professor of modern German history, were asked about one of the benefits of being a WSU faculty member, Wichita public schools would top his list.

"One of the most positive features about being a professor at Wichita State is the quality of public instruction for my children," says the father of three elementary schoolchildren. "I know that when my children are ready for college, they really will be ready."

Local schools are "a big recruiting factor" when candidates consider coming to WSU, says Rick LeCompte, chair of the department of finance, real estate and decision sciences, who is interviewing for four faculty positions in the department.

"I emphasize the quality and the choices of education we have in Wichita," says LeCompte, who also has children attending USD 259. "I use it as a selling point for Wichita." Parents can choose from a variety of magnet schools and the public-private partnership Edison schools within USD 259.

‘A major focal point of my life’

While the education may be top-notch, the facilities used by more than 48,500 Wichita students are not. In fact, USD 259 has the second-oldest schools in the country.

Pickus, a strong advocate for public education, has become a dedicated volunteer in USD 259’s bond issue campaign to deal with those infrastructure problems.

Since September, Pickus has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on the effort, first as part of the district’s initial facility master plan steering committee that pared down a $460 million critical needs list into a $284.5 million bond proposal and now as part of a community group that is campaigning to pass the bond.

While he stops short of calling it an all-consuming effort, he says, "It has become a major focal point of my life.

"I had no idea the conditions of some of the schools," says Pickus, who has been at WSU since 1995. "I had no idea that there were schools that need to be torn down and totally replaced. I had no idea there were 280 portables in this district that should be converted to permanent space.

"If you walk into the school buildings, you see the need. You see that there are plumbing fixtures that need to be replaced. You see that there are overcrowded classrooms. You see that there are not multipurpose rooms at every school. You see that many schools don’t have a place where children can eat so they sit on the stairs. Those are real issues. So the question (for the steering committee) became, how do you make the public aware of that and craft a proposal that will be acceptable for the majority of the voters."

In January, after countless meetings that involved the public and input from facility committees at each school, the steering committee came up with a bond proposal of $284.5 million, which the Board of Education accepted and will be put to a vote April 4.

Involving the community

The school district had decided, based on a survey done by WSU’s Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, that the process to develop a bond proposal needed extensive community involvement.

Between 2,000 to 3,000 people, including a number of people from WSU, were involved in the process. Each school had committees of parents, neighbors and business folks help draft individual site needs lists, and more than 150 community members, including WSU College of Education dean Jon Engelhardt, were invited to be part of the steering committee.

Another community group, Citizens Alliance for Responsible Education, was formed recently to raise money to conduct a campaign to pass the bond.

Jim Rhatigan, senior vice president, was on Robinson Middle School’s committee and got a firsthand look at its conditions. He, too, is continuing his volunteer work as the higher education liaison with CARE, helping to provide information, secure support and encourage voter registration at WSU and Friends and Newman universities.

Rhatigan, along with Connie Dietz, director of the cooperative education internships program and a USD 259 Board of Education member, encourage people to take tours being offered at each school over the next several weeks.

"I believe that any person who wants to be informed should respond to the invitation to visit the schools," says Rhatigan, who feels public education is the key to social and economic mobility in the United States. "If they are thoughtful and fair-minded people, they’ll see the need to upgrade the schools."

A number of groups that have never endorsed the bond issues in the past are on board for this one, says Dietz. Groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Wichita Independent Business Association and city and county officials are voicing their support.

Should the bond issue pass, the community involvement won’t end. The Wichita BOE plans to create a watchdog committee of community members who will act "as the board’s eyes and ears," says Dietz, to ensure projects outlined in the bond are being completed.

Not surprisingly, Pickus says he would be willing to make the five-year commitment to the committee.

‘The timing is right’

The last time a bond issue passed for Wichita schools was nearly three decades ago, in 1974.

Since then the BOE has attempted and has failed to pass local option budgets.

Besides having the backing of a variety of groups, this particular bond comes at a good time, says Dietz, who taught in Wichita elementary schools from 1969-1980.

"I don’t think the timing will ever be this right again," she says. "I think it’s right because our student scores are improving –we have a long way to go and it will continue to be (the BOE’s) focus as it should be; we have a school board that is working together very well and is focused on student learning and improving this district; and we have people recognizing that our schools are in need beyond what our annual allocation for capital improvements can handle."

Already Wichita taxpayers are footing the bill for bond issues that have passed in other Kansas school districts. In 1992, school-finance legislation that allows the state to support bond indebtedness of public schools was passed. The money comes from income, sales and property taxes paid into the state’s general budget.

"We are one of the few districts that doesn’t have any bond indebtedness and has not taken advantage of this plan," says Pickus. For USD 259, the state would kick in an estimated $97 million of principal and interest over the 20-year bond period.

But endorsements and a state financing program may not be enough to ensure the bond issue passes. The bond proposal is the only item on the April 4 ballot because the state canceled the presidential primary vote scheduled for the same day. A single, local issue on the ballot tends to mean low voter turnout, says Ken Ciboski, a political science professor. And low voter turnout tends to favor those in opposition, he says.

"Those opposed to an idea tend to turn out and vote against it," says Ciboski.

For those who question whether schools in better condition impact student learning, Dietz uses the analogy of a heart surgeon, willing to perform surgery under any conditions.

"If you put her in a room designed, built and equipped for the 1950s, and you put her in a room designed, built and equipped for the year 2000, which room will give that surgeon the best possible environment in which to work? Obviously, it’s the one built for the year 2000. That’s what we’re talking about in our schools."

Get out the vote

At WSU, the bond issue is getting support from its three employee groups. All three employee senates have adopted resolutions supporting the bond and encouraging people to vote.

Additionally, KMUW, the public radio station at WSU, and the Sunflower, the student newspaper, have carried endorsements for the bond.