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Maize, Haysville School District Voters Approve Bond Issues

USD261.com

The results are in for two Wichita-area school districts that held bond elections today. 

Voters in the Haysville school district voted overwhelmingly--almost 80 percent of the more than 1100 ballots cast--in favor for a $59 million bond to be used for renovations and improvements at schools and district buildings.

The projects include adding two storm shelters and a natatorium complex at Campus High School.

County election officials say about 38 percent of voters in the Maize school district cast their mail-in ballots for the $83.5 million bond issue, split into two questions.

KMUW’s Aileen LeBlanc has the results.

Voters in the Maize school district voted to support the first of the two ballot questions, approving more than $70 million in building renovations and athletic facility upgrades.

The $70.7 million bond will mean tornado safe rooms at the high school, a career and professional center, a new early childhood center and an expanded Maize Middle School.

Credit Maize School District

"Before we can even begin that project, we have to reroute our bus loop on the north side of that building," says district Superintendent Doug Powers. "That would be one of the first things we would do."

Powers says work on the new road for the buses will begin in early fall.

Voters approved the bond issue 53 to 46 percent. They did not approve another almost $13 million for a new natatorium for the district.

The bond issue approval also means Maize High School will get a new storm shelter.

Powers says getting the bond approved this month means the state will contribute about $42 million toward the bond’s principal and interest.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.