Lawrence Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors on Wednesday endorsed a pair of bond issues aimed at improving the city’s schools.

“Support was unanimous,” said Chamber president and CEO Lavern Squires.

The endorsement followed a meeting of board members and USD 497 Supt. Randy Weseman and school board member Sue Morgan.

“I don’t want to leave the impression that because the board’s support was unanimous, this was a slam-dunk deal. It wasn’t,” Squires said. “This (endorsement) came after a lot of careful thought and deliberation.”

He added: “The (school) board has presented a cost-effective bond proposal that will put the needs, safety and security of the children first, while taking into consideration the taxpayers’ burdens.”

The Chamber board agreed to open its meeting with Weseman and Morgan to the public; its deliberations on whether to endorse the bonds were closed.

The school board has proposed two bond issues:

• $8.8 million for technology upgrades throughout the district.
• $54 million for building renovations, additions and new construction.

The $54 million bond issue includes $26.6 million for a new South Junior High School.

If the bonds are approved, Weseman said, a new junior high school would be built behind South. Construction is expected to take about two years.

After the new building opens, the current facility will be torn down.

“Technically, this is not new construction,” Morgan said. “It’s replacement construction.”

District studies have shown that renovations at asbestos-plagued South would cost almost as much as a new building.

Other construction projects:

• $3.6 million for new science labs, an east gym entrance and new locker rooms for Lawrence High School.

“If you want to see locker rooms like the ones in the old Knute Rockne movies, come to Lawrence High,” Weseman said, referring to the former Notre Dame football coach.

• $1.3 million for industrial technology labs at Free State High School.
• $16.9 million for additional classrooms at Central, Southwest, and West junior highs.

The classrooms, Weseman said, will replace the 35 portable classrooms now in use at the three junior highs, and “put off the need for a new junior high for eight or 10 years.”

It’s not usual, Weseman said, for one-third of the students at Southwest to be in mobile units.

“That’s just not acceptable,” he said. “It’s not good for kids.”

Weseman said the technology bond issue should not be seen as “more kids sitting in front of more computers.”

Instead, most of the money will be used to give classrooms throughout the district wireless access to the Internet and to the district’s own internal network. The district’s broadband capability, too, would expand.

“One of the things this would do,” Morgan said, “is create a system that parents could log into and check to see if their kids went to school that day or check on their grades or find out what the homework assignments are.”

“We’ve fallen behind on our (technology) infrastructure,” Weseman said.

The bonds will be on the April 5 general election ballot. If both pass, property taxes within the school district would increase 2.25 mills.

The tax burden on a $100,000 home would increase $2.16 per month; $3.23 per month on a $150,00 home; $4.31 per month on a $200,000 home.

The district’s voters in 2003 rejected a $59 million bond package to finance replacing South, expanding New York and Cordley elementary schools, and improving conditions at other schools. The bond vote coincided with the closure of Centennial and East Heights schools

The latest bond proposal has detractors, too. But opposition so far has not been as public or as organized as it was when the earlier bond proposal was defeated.

“I oppose it and everyone I know opposes it — both parts,” said David Holroyd, a City Commission candidate. “It really benefits nobody.

Holroyd said he and others objected to plans to pay DLR Group, an Overland Park consulting firm, a 3.5 percent fee for overseeing the construction projects.

“We want to know what they’re getting in terms of millions of dollars,” he said.

Weseman said DLR Group’s services were much needed, and its fee was “well within the industry norm.”

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