Pueblo City School aims to keep four high schools open with bond

At a special meeting Wednesday night, the Pueblo District 60 School Board voted to approve a bond election for November, asking voters for more money to maintain four high schools and make repairs to existing schools in the district.

The bond is $218 million and more than $230 million after inflation, meaning if a home is worth $100,000 the owner would pay an extra $78 per year.

Commercial property owners would pay an extra $315 per year for a property of the same $100,000 value.

A recent engineering survey by MOA Architecture out of Denver found many of district’s buildings are breaking down and underutilized.

Under the terms of the bond question, Pueblo Centennial High School and Pueblo East High School would be rebuilt. At Wednesday night’s special meeting, school board members said the new buildings would be built on the same locations as the previous structures. However, that wasn’t made clear in the ballot question.

Before Wednesday, the district spent months since the MOA survey holding stakeholders meetings and exploring their options.

” This is an outstanding opportunity, not only for our schools but really for the entire community, ” said Dalton Sprouse a District 60 spokesperson . ” We look at how this will impact economic development in our community. Long term, it’s a great opportunity. ”

For months, students and alumni of Pueblo East High School protested its potential closure after the MOA survey suggested that the school close due to poor infrastructure.

Stakeholders now say this vote is much larger than just East High School.

“Everybody has a stake in this, ” said Pueblo East alumnus Kane Lane. ” It’s not just about closing a high school, this is about the future of all 4 quadrants of the city.”

When asked if Centennial and East would need to close if the bond doesn’t pass, District Spokesperson Dalton Sprouse said that is unclear. However, the board will continue to fight to keep all four schools if it is possible.

” If the bond doesn’t pass, we obviously would be in a very difficult position to keep schools open long-term, ” said Sprouse . ” Financially, we are simply not able to afford the cost of catastrophic failures like the one we had at Heroes which resulted in the school’s closure last school year. ”

Several other Pueblo High School alumni and parents met with KRDO Wednesday morning to discuss the upcoming ballot question.

They are pleased the school board is moving forward with a four high school bond option. However, they say more information is needed to sell this bond to voters.

” Puebloans don’t like spending money on things they don’t feel like they are getting value for, ” said Lane. ” The district is going to have to provide more information so that supporters of the bond can go out and sell the bond to the public.”

Before November’s vote, Lane wants the district to clarify a few points. He wants to confirm that they will guarantee the new high schools will be built on the same sites, the student capacity of the two new buildings, the designs of the two buildings, how construction work fit in around the school year class schedule, and how the district plans to monitor the spending of the bond funds.

Lane wouldn’t say if he was confident the bond will pass. However, he thinks it can be done.

” If we can get the information out, if we raise the money, if we get the district to work with us in terms of the right messaging and the kind of commitments that we think need to be made. I think we can pass this, ” said Lane.