WICHITA, Kansas — Wichita voters have narrowly rejected a $450 million bond issue to rebuild and renovate schools, sending the state’s largest district searching for a plan to address aging buildings and declining enrollment.
Final results released Friday from the Sedgwick County Election Office show the measure failed by just 319 votes with about 28,000 ballots cast.
About 14% of registered voters participated in the single-issue special election.
Wichita district leaders have said they plan to gather a focus group of voters later this month and conduct a community survey. They also are forming a financial oversight committee to study the district's overall budget.
They have not said whether they plan to ask for a smaller bond issue.
This was the first bond election for Wichita schools since 2008 and only the third since 1974.
The $450 million bond plan called for building five new elementary schools and two middle schools. It also would have built a new early childhood center, converted two elementary schools to K-8 schools, added a career center focused on construction trades, and added athletic fields to Northeast Magnet High School.
Last week's vote came about a year after the Wichita school board voted to shutter six schools to help fill a $42 million budget gap.
More school closures are likely. Wichita district leaders said L’Ouverture, Woodland, OK and Pleasant Valley elementary schools would close regardless of the election outcome because those buildings are inefficient and too costly to repair.
Without new, larger schools for those students to move into, the district will likely redraw attendance boundaries before closing more schools and reassigning students. Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said the earliest they would close is fall of 2026.
Ben Davis, spokesman for the bond opposition group Wichita United for Better Education, said voters sent a message that schools need a better plan to deal with aging buildings.
"Hopefully, lesson learned for any future talk of bonds going forward," Davis said.
"There's going to be very serious opposition to this, and (leaders should) hopefully think twice before coming back to taxpayers without a very serious, very detailed, better plan that is not, in the long term, going to be raising taxes."
Davis said the district does have some building needs, but leaders need to be more transparent and involve the public.
"I really hope that they get a lot more full community buy-in," he said. "I know they said that they did before, but it became very apparent throughout this campaign that people were like, 'Look, we weren't a part of that. We'd like to be a part of that going forward.'"
Suzanne Perez reports on education for KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KMUW, KCUR, Kansas Public Radio and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
