Some community members say they intend to vote against the Wichita school district’s proposed $615 million bond issue because of the district’s plans to close schools.
That includes some who are concerned that the closures are especially impacting historically Black neighborhoods in northeast Wichita.
The Wichita school board voted earlier this year to close four elementary schools: L'Ouverture, OK, Pleasant Valley and Woodland.
If the bond passes, the district would convert OK Elementary into an early childhood center. But some parents at OK say that plan would uproot their kids from the generational relationships they have at the school.
Zac Everheart attended OK and now has two children at the school.
“We’re able to say, ‘That was our teacher,’ and they really engage knowing that was Dad’s teacher,” he said.
The district has said many of the schools set to close have aging infrastructure and low enrollment, citing a drop in the birth rate. Districts across Kansas and the rest of the country are seeing enrollment decline as people are generally having fewer babies.
“There was a point in time in Wichita where we had 92 elementary schools, and pretty much every square mile had an elementary school that had 400 to 500 kids in it,” Wichita Superintendent Kelly Bielefeld said in a recent interview with KMUW. “We’re in a different era in our community where there's not a need for that many schools.”
District leaders also say that by consolidating some neighborhood schools, it can better staff buildings and give each student a more equal learning experience. Some buildings are currently sharing professionals like nurses and counselors, for example.
OK Elementary began as a one-room schoolhouse in the 1870s, according to the Wichita Eagle. It is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
In the ‘90s, a second-grade class at OK, which included Everheart, started the push to get the Kansas Legislature to recognize the barred tiger salamander as the state amphibian. NFL Hall-of-Famer Barry Sanders also reportedly attended the school.
The current building was built in the 1950s and was later renovated under the 2008 bond. Those renovations included a new library, additional classrooms, improved safety features and interior upgrades.
Because of those upgrades, Everheart argues, the building is in better shape than the district says.
“There may be one or two bricks here that go back to the ‘90s,” he said, “but this school has been pretty much razed and rebuilt on this piece of property since 2008.”
OK is set to close at the end of this school year without the bond. But the parents who plan to vote “no” say they hope it will send a message and make the board reconsider closing schools.
“If there is a ‘no’ vote, go back (and) rethink this because obviously you do not have the support you thought you did, and don't close these schools,” said Aaron Andrews, a parent who collected hundreds of signatures in an effort to convince the district to keep OK open.
Some closures affecting historically Black neighborhoods
Some community members have also raised concerns about recent and planned closures in historically Black neighborhoods in northeast Wichita.
L'Ouverture Career Exploration and Technology Magnet Elementary School will close at the end of this school year, regardless of the results of the bond.
The district also recently closed and demolished the former Chester Lewis Academic Center and Mathewson Junior High building. The site currently sits empty with no clear plans for its future.
Lavonta Williams, a former Wichita City Council member and current vice president of the local NAACP, told board members earlier this year she will support the bond but is disappointed that it doesn’t include an early childhood center where Mathewson once stood.
The new early childhood center was proposed in the bond issue that voters rejected by a thin margin in 2025. In this proposal, the district would instead convert OK Elementary into an early childhood center.
“That was something that we were looking forward to,” Williams said, “but with this bond, it will become an empty site.”
“This building was one of four buildings that African-American students could attend many years ago and it remains in the historic McAdams area. What’s next, Dunbar?” she said, referring to the Dunbar Learning Center on North Cleveland, which was once an elementary school.
The former Chester Lewis building was originally Mathewson Junior High, an all-Black school in the days of segregation, and remained a community pillar to the predominantly Black surrounding neighborhood.
The district closed the school in the late 1960s, heeding a recommendation from the federal Office of Civil Rights as part of efforts to racially integrate schools, according to The Community Voice.
But that decision meant many Black students had to be bused to different schools across the district, outside of the neighborhood they grew up in.
Mary Dean, a community activist, opposes the bond. At a recent forum, she said busing is still a reality for many Black students in Wichita.
“The major selling point and primary promise of the 2008 bond initiative was to end busing as people knew it,” she said. “A promise that was used to gain public support has not fully been recognized.”
Dean criticized the district for closing schools in 2012, which she said was done despite concerns raised by Black residents.
“That experience damaged trust between the district and the communities most affected by those closures,” she said. “Today, district leaders are asking taxpayers to trust them again with another large bond package, but trust is built on results and accountability.”
A study by Stanford researchers indicates school closures disproportionately impact communities of color nationwide. The research shows majority Black schools are more than three times as likely to close as non-majority Black schools.
Dean also criticized what she called an achievement gap for the district’s Black students.
“Before asking taxpayers to fund more buildings, we should be asking why these achievement gaps remain … after years of investment and reform efforts,” she said.
The district briefly reopened the former Mathewson building in the late 1980s as a community education center before it became Northeast Magnet High School.
When Northeast Magnet moved to a new building in Bel Aire in 2012, the old building became Chester Lewis, housing the district’s alternative high school and other programs.
Chester Lewis was a key figure in the historic Dockum Drug Store Sit-In and in the integration of Wichita schools.
Lewis’ name remains attached to the alternative high school program, but many in the community have asked the district to find a way to keep the name in the neighborhood.
Voters in the Wichita school district will decide Nov. 3 whether to approve the bond issue. Early voting is already underway in Sedgwick County.
