El Paso ISD begins looking into $300M-$400M bond election options
El Paso Independent School District wants to become a premier district of choice over the next five years. But reaching that goal requires a bond election.
As soon as June, the EPISD board could call for a bond election. Modernizing the entire district would cost over $1 billion with interest, which board President Dori Fenenbock said isn’t plausible in one bond election. She said the district is beginning to look at its options.
“Over the last two years, we spent some time doing a lot of work, a lot of clean up, and making a lot of difficult decisions,” said EPISD Superintendent Juan Cabrera. “But now we’re doing the exciting work, talking about the future of the district.”
EPISD wants its students to be exposed to technology as young as possible. But old schools with cinder-block walls impede WiFi signals. It wants large classrooms built for active, group learning. But its classrooms are made for linear seating.
“We aren’t serving our children if they are in 1950’s buildings and we’re trying to deliver 21st century education,” Fenenbock said.
But nothing is for free. ABC-7 first reported last year, EPISD wants shrink the number of schools it has, closing some, consolidating others. It also wants to improve the conditions of existing schools and modernize its classrooms.
“We’ve identified a little over a billion with interest over 15 years,” Fenenbock said. “Obviously we couldn’t do that in the next five years, so we need to prioritize that.”
The district is now assembling an 80-member citizens advisory committee to whittle that billion down to $300 million-$400 million EPISD can ask for in a bond election. The committee will visit every one of the district’s 91 campuses and pick the projects to focus on first.
“The community took over after difficult times,” Cabrera said. “But I believe that we’re now poised to really begin to move into high-gear and do some great things.”
If the board moves forward the bond in June, it will have to consider how this affects the tax rate. Right now EPISD has one of the lowest tax rates in the county at $1.23 per $100 of home valuation. The district expects the rate to go up if a bond is passed.
