SILSBEE, Texas — The Silsbee Independent School District hosted a Q&A bond presentation on Tuesday for voters in the district.
The presentation was a chance for voters to learn about the upgrades the district would receive if the bond gets approved in the upcoming election.
The Silsbee ISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved an $84.5 million bond in August for the construction, renovation, improvement, acquisition and equipment of school buildings in the district.
It's been 10 years since the last bond was passed in Silsbee. That bond funded building the district's elementary campus.
Now, Superintendent Dr. Greg Weiss says the rest of the district needs an upgrade to ensure everyone is successful.
"We're looking at trying to improve our educational environment for our students," Weiss said. "Our middle school is 56 years old. It was built in 1967. So, it has really reached its time of serving this community."
The bond proposal would fund a brand new middle school, upgrade the softball and baseball fields and renovate the high school's career and technical education building, which is over 20 years old.
"Our facilities don't provide adequate space for our programs, our health services, our floral design, a lot of our robotics classes. We're looking to be able to expand those classes also at the high school," Weiss said.
Students and teachers will also be moved around
"We want to make our junior high a 7th and 8th grade campus only. With that, we'll be creating an intermediate level campus out of one of our existing buildings," Weiss said.
Even then, every single student will be impacted somehow.
"Laura Reeves Primary, we'll create a 4th, 5th and 6th grade and then we would shift our pre-k and kinder over to our elementary school, which will be a pre-k through 3rd grade campus," xx said.
If the bond passes, there would be four phases of construction and the campuses would be complete by the end of 2026.
"There's some building and construction programs that would have to start first," Weiss said.
Voters will be asked to accept a property tax increase at the school bond election in November.
"We're just going to be very optimistic about our community. They've been good supporters of education in the past. We'll put our hands in there and hope we gave enough information for them to make an educated decision on that," Weiss said.
Dr. Weiss says the bond is vital to growing their district and leading their students to successful futures.
"It's for students. It's to help prepare our kids to be competitive and be college and career ready," Weiss said. "We want to prepare them to be productive citizens and be the next leaders of tomorrow."
Texas school districts do not receive state funding for renovating or building new schools. Instead, they must receive funds through school bond elections.
If Silsbee voters pass the bond in November, the estimated impact would be $7.86 per month on a home valued at $150,000.
In 2019, Texas Legislators passed a new law as part of House Bill 3 that requires all bond propositions for any school district to have the phrase, ‘This is a property tax increase’ on all ballot language for bond propositions.
Due to this requirement, all voters will see this statement on the official ballot, even if the tax dollar amount is frozen and will not exceed the tax ceiling.
Homeowners 65 and older will not be impacted by the passage of the bond propositions if they have filed for and received the Over 65 Homestead Exemption with the Hardin County Appraisal District.
The components of the proposed bond projects are as follows:
- Safety and Security updates to protect students and staff across multiple campuses.
- Construction of a new Edwards-Johnson Memorial Silsbee Middle School to provide state-of-the-art facilities which will include a competition gymnasium, band hall and four lane track.
- Reconfiguration of grades to include only 7th and 8th grade students.
- Renovating Laura Reeves into an Intermediate campus which will house 4th, 5th and 6th grade students.
- Pre-K and Kindergarten will relocate to Silsbee Elementary.
- Construction of a Career and Technical Education Building at Silsbee High School, preparing students for real-world opportunities. The building will include floral design, technology, culinary, robotics and nursing.
- Updates to the softball and baseball complex, including the installation of turf fields and drainage improvements.
- Resurfacing of Tennis Courts and addressing longtime drainage issues.
- Construction of a new Ag Barn
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023 and Early Voting is Oct. 23 to Nov. 3.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.