UPDATE: May 13, 2025, with comments from Cedar Rapids Community School District spokesperson.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The Cedar Rapids Community School District Board of Education has agreed to ask voters to approve a $117 million bond proposal, while at the same time, moving forward with plans to build two new elementary schools, without a vote of the public.
At its meeting May 12, 2025, the board unanimously approved the following language to appear on the Nov. 4 ballot: “Shall the Board of Directors of the Cedar Rapids Community School District in the County of Linn, State of Iowa, be authorized to contract indebtedness and issue General Obligation Bonds in an amount not to exceed $117,000,000 to provide funds to remodel, repair, improve (including architectural, civil, electrical, HVAC, safety/accessibility, structural, and technology upgrades), furnish, and equip McKinley Middle School building, Wilson Middle School building (to convert to elementary programming), Roosevelt Middle School building, and Kennedy High School (including constructing, furnishing, and equipping additions to add a Freshman Academy and expand commons and kitchen areas), and site improvements?”
Board President Cindy Garlock asked for board members to approve the measure, even though no motion or second was made, as typically would be required.
Heather Butterfield, Director of Communications for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, said there was no formal motion or second made for the action item regarding the proposed bond petition language, “nor was one required by law.”
“All board members unanimously voted in favor of the language,” Butterfield wrote in an email. “While the vote itself was not legally necessary to proceed, the district requested it in the interest of transparency and to demonstrate unified board support.”
Voters still need to petition to have the bond referendum included on the Nov. 4 ballot. In the last bond vote in 2023, the School District needed 6,319 signatures of eligible voters, but the number needed for this year was not mentioned.
More: See the petition signatures from the last bond vote
Kennedy High School, in northeast Cedar Rapids, would be upgraded under the new bond proposal. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
Property owners would pay about $90 more annually in taxes on a $200,000 home if the bond referendum passes in November. At least 60 percent of voters must approve for the measure to pass.
At the same meeting, the School Board voted as part of its consent agenda — typically routine items — to accept bids for two new elementary schools on the Hoover and Van Buren sites, both on the west side of Cedar Rapids.
Supporting documents only showed just over $250,000 in estimated costs for permanent wells on each school site. The documents did not indicate the total costs for the two schools, but recent elementary schools have totaled about $32 million each, and with construction costs escalating amid tariffs on building materials, that amount could rise.
Butterfield said in an email the day after the meeting that estimated costs for the new schools is nearly $85 million combined.
Estimated cost for construction of Hoover (at schematic design phase) is $42,062,858, which includes a 10 percent contingency in the estimate and estimated cost for construction of Van Buren (at schematic design phase) is $42,773,073, which again includes a 10% contingency in the estimate.
Butterfield said there will be additional public hearings with each set of plans and specifications for the two projects.
The board bypassed a vote of the public on the school demolitions and new buildings by using taxpayer dollars from a separate funding source, known as “SAVE.” The “mega” schools would each have room for 600 students.
Building additions to accommodate more students, or other possible cost-saving measures, were not proposed.
Related: School Board votes to build new schools after open meetings complaint
The two new schools are separate from the proposed bond referendum which includes the following:
McKinley Middle School: $45 million renovation; Wilson Middle School: $35 renovation to accommodate elementary students from Grant and Taylor, known as Cedar River Academy; Roosevelt Middle School: $25 million renovation to accommodate students from Wilson; Kennedy High School: $12 million renovation to add a Freshman Academy and expand commons and kitchen areas.
Surveys for an earlier $211 million bond proposal that included a new $104 million middle school showed the measure would likely fail. The new middle school, on land outside of city limits that the School Board voted to purchase for $7.5 million, was subsequently removed from the proposal.
Ron Corbett, vice president of economic development for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, told the board a new phone survey showed the revised measure would likely pass, with 61.8 percent of respondents saying they would definitely or likely vote “yes.”
The survey was conducted last week by Victory Enterprises of Davenport with just over 500 likely voters.
Corbett said residents are anxious about the economy, with an even higher level currently than during the last survey in February, as more than 54 percent of respondents indicated they are concerned about the impact of inflation on their finances, and just 5 percent unconcerned.
Questions to district leaders about the costs of the two new elementary schools and about the vote on the bond language were not immediately answered.
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If the Cedar Rapids public school district can construct two expensive new elementary schools from funds on hand without a vote, why do citizens need to vote themselves another tax increase over 20 years in November?
Very little community input in 2024 went into the decision to build the two elementaries.
stop spending money on more buildings when we have a bunch of vacant ones in town already.