Nine years after the last bond decision, the district is to see another election for a new bond this November. 

“What makes the bond important is that we’re trying to solve a lot of issues that we have currently,” Assistant Superintendent Scott Drillette said. “The high school, the intermediate and middle schools, and Armstrong are our older campuses. They need a lot of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing repairs.”

While many of the buildings are brand new, some parts of the middle school haven’t been redone for at least 20 years. 

“Parts of the middle school are extremely old and require repairs or renovations to maintain the facilities,” Board of Trustees member Jae Ellis said. “The bond will designate approximately 29 million dollars for very necessary repairs at the middle school.”

In order to ensure that school is uninterrupted, the majority of the maintenance will occur during summer and when school is out of session, though it is possible that construction may still impact the school year. 

“We will do as much as possible to make sure that the students aren’t impacted negatively during work on the bond projects. However, there are projects that may not be able to be completed in the summer, like the high school cafeteria renovation,” Drillette said.

Along with the cafeteria at the high school, the field at the middle school could have some renovations that go beyond the end of summer deadline. 

“If we were to re-turf the field at MIS, we would do it at a time where it would least impact the students,” committee member Clinton Warren said. “But there might be some time where that would affect the students, and that’s unavoidable. But the idea is that there would be minimal impact on the students.” 

Along with the changes to the buildings, the bond will also implement an increase in salaries for district staff, including teachers, administration, and custodial, maintenance, and food service workers.

“If the bond is approved, there will be some immediate increase in the form of a one-time stipend this year and then a salary increase next year and beyond,” Drillette said “The intention is that the salary increase percentages will be the same for all staff across the board. We want to make sure that everybody is positively impacted.”

Additionally, the bond will not raise taxes for Highland Park residents. 

“There are advantages for the school district within the constraints and within the rules that makes it advantageous to raise a bond,” Ellis said. “If HPISD raises money by selling bonds, then we keep 100% of that money, whereas any increase in maintenance and operations taxes would be subject to recapture such that the government would redistribute a large portion to other districts.”

Receiving a bond as large as the one being voted on in the upcoming election requires lots of careful financial planning in order to use the money in the most efficient manner. The district plans on collaborating with multiple institutions to achieve this. 

“In coordination with the board of trustees and a financial institution we partner with, there will be a bank we will work with that will have a lot of experience, and the Board of Trustees will handle the logistics,” Warren said.

Though the district plans to use the money to handle a number of current day to day issues, such as the middle school repairs, it is equally important to address future infrastructure issues. 

“We’re always trying to find the best ways to use the dollars that we have available to us,” Drillette said “We’re never going to rely only on one thing. We’re going to look at what’s available to us from the state funding formula and what’s available to us from bond dollars and then we’re going to make decisions as to how we use these dollars and be most tax efficient.”

Regardless of whether this bond gets passed or not the district has a plan to ensure a better future for the district, no matter what. 

“The way I like to think of it is that we moved to a new house seven and half years ago, right after the last bond,” Warren said. “We did a bunch of work at our house to help maintain it, but now the house is flooding. This is not what we aspire for our house to be.”