Frequently Asked Questions
Registered voters residing in the district will vote on a bond amount not to exceed $11,000,000.
This facility addition and renovation project has been designed to accommodate the growth in our school enrollment:
- Classroom Addition and Renovations: The project will provide eight new high school classrooms and six new elementary classrooms.
- Career, Technical and Ag Education Space: The additional classrooms include larger, more functional Career, Technical and Ag Education shop spaces.
- Media Center: The current media center will be renovated into multiple classrooms. The existing courtyard will be enclosed and turned into a new media center.
- Activity Entrance: A new entrance will provide better access to the gym.
Additional Parking: More parking spots will be added to the west of the school.
- The school board started talking about rising student enrollment and the resulting space concerns in January 2022.
- To provide room for future growth, the district purchased six acres north of the school in September 2023.
- By April 2024, continued growth in student numbers made it clear that the board needed to find more space for students.
- Over the summer of 24, the board visited other schools to gain an understanding of possible options and begin researching solutions for Pleasanton Public Schools.
- In the fall, the board and the architect met with the community and staff to further develop and refine a solution.
Over the past 10 years, PreK-12 enrollment has grown from 264 to our current enrollment of 331. Birth to 5 census numbers indicate enrollment will continue to grow steadily. The five-year student enrollment projection using birth to 5 census data is 353.
5-year enrollment history
24-25: 331
23-24: 320
22-23: 306
21-22: 308
20-21: 292
The projected annual tax impact is 21.5 cents per $100 of valuation. This projection is based on a 20 year bond, the district’s current LB2 bond valuation (ag land valuation at 50%), and a preliminary bond yield rate of around 4.40%.
A 21.5 cent bond levy would equal $215 more per year on $100,000 of valuation. Ag land is assessed at a lower percentage (50%) of market value for the purposes of this bond.
Please visit the tax calculator on the bond information website to enter your own personal assessed valuation to see your projected annual tax impact.
The existing bond will be paid off in December of 2032. The board will need to tax for these bond payments for seven more years and the existing bond will be paid in full. The existing bond levy for this fiscal year was 13.5 cents. This is a decrease from 28.2 cents in its first tax year thanks to refinancing and increasing valuations. This levy will go away when the last bond payment is made.
Waiting until the existing bond is paid off before running a new bond would be extremely challenging due to growing enrollment and rising construction costs. The cost to taxpayers to wait would more than likely be greater than addressing these issues now.
To keep up with our growing number of students and to make more course offerings available to our students, PPS has been taking a practical approach to staffing by hiring one or two new staff members each year. Once the new addition is finished, we will continue slowly adding staff, and plan to hire a shop teacher and other instructors. This will provide PPS students with even more course opportunities.
A secure vestibule will be added to a new activities entrance, creating a protected buffer between the outside and the main building.
It is past the right time. Our school is facing a critical space shortage due to growing high enrollment. For example, our incoming kindergarten class is already maxed out at 25. Without an open classroom available for a second kindergarten section, a class of this size forces us to consider two options that are less-than-ideal: exceeding our standard class limit or combining special education classes. We have simply run out of room.
It is difficult to find the perfect time for a facility project. Construction costs continue to increase and waiting to address facility needs will only get more expensive.
Option enrollment has been instrumental in our district’s growth. Over the past two years, having option students has contributed $923,972 to our budget, with an additional
$878,000 expected this year. This funding has allowed the district to hire more teachers, reduce class sizes, and expand academic and extracurricular programs, benefiting all students.
The district growth comes from both an increase in local enrollment and families choosing Pleasanton through option enrollment. Both groups are critical to our success. Local students are the heart of our district, and option students bring additional state funding that eases the financial burden on district taxpayers while enabling us to provide more opportunities. While this growth has created some space challenges, the benefits are clear: more resources, more programs, and a stronger future for all students.
The district has partnered with Wilkins Architecture | Design | Planning and BD Construction to help us obtain accurate budget numbers for this project. BD used current and historical cost data for similar education addition and renovation projects in our region to help the school set an “all in” bond amount.
After the bond passes, all divisions of work will be put out for bid. The final bond amount cannot exceed $11,000,000.
Our bond amount includes projected inflation and contingency to ensure the project can be built for the amount on the ballot. While construction volatility has stabilized, the cost to build schools will only continue to rise. The longer we wait to address the district’s needs, the higher the cost will be.
Yes, parking spots will be added to the east side of the school. For budget purposes, this won’t be a paved parking lot but will provide more space as needed for events at the school.
Our architecture firm understands the importance of natural lighting in a classroom and has suggested various design options to bring in natural light for those classrooms.
As soon as the bond passes, the architect begins about four to six months of work to develop detailed drawings. Construction typically starts six months following bond passage.
Once design details are finalized, the construction company will create a phasing plan. BD Construction specializes in school remodels and additions and develops phasing to limit disruption to students. Often, additions are built first so that students can be moved into those spaces. As students move out of existing classrooms and into new spaces, those existing rooms can be remodeled. BD also creates the schedule to complete as much work as possible over summer break.
Much time and planning has gone into a project that addresses adding classrooms to accommodate our student growth. If the bond doesn’t pass, we may have to look into more expensive short term options, like modular classrooms, to meet the needs of our students.
Aside from the moral argument that everyone benefits from an educated population, good schools make communities more vibrant, dynamic and attractive. The quality of a community’s schools is one of the main criteria for businesses and individuals who are seeking to relocate. Even more importantly, good schools are essential to young families considering the Pleasanton area as a home, and for opt-in students. If we hope to maintain a thriving community, we must continue to invest in our facilities.
The new addition will reduce crowding in classrooms and improve educational opportunities for students.
When we look at our school “array” (that is, the Nebraska schools that are closest to us in size, 10 larger and 10 smaller), Pleasanton has 4.9 teachers fewer than the average.
High School
It is important to note that while this is a construction project, the outcome is to provide students more opportunities. Many schools the same size as Pleasanton offer more class options to their students. For example, we would like to offer advanced and honors classes in the core subjects like reading, math and science, shop class, Honors and AP classes, and intervention classes for students who find school challenging. The additional classroom space not only keeps class size manageable allowing for more one-on-one instruction it also allows the district to offer classes that better meet the needs of a wide range of student interests and abilities.
Elementary
Research consistently shows smaller class size improves student learning. Smaller class sizes make it easier to differentiate and modify assignments to meet the specific needs of all students. Whether students require additional challenges or extra help, personalized approaches not only enhance academic performance but also build students’ confidence. With fewer students in the classroom, teachers can spend more time observing and engaging with each child, identifying areas for growth and celebrating their progress. Small class sizes also create space for teachers to form meaningful relationships with their students. Smaller classes allow teachers to get to know students on a more personal level.
Our kitchen and the elementary hallways are large enough to accommodate current and projected enrollment.
At some point, we will need to address the cafeteria and locker rooms as those spaces are getting crowded.
Question:
Education over sports is the correct methodology to help inform voters on this issue. What surveys have been undertaken to gauge your academic success? Or does brain drain exist and we lose our brightest to outside influences. What percentage of graduates stay in the community? My respective boss instructed me “Nothing Measured? Then Nothing Gained!”
Answer:
Thank you for your interest and great question. We do work hard to use data to gauge our academic success. At the elementary level, we use an assessment called the MAP Assessment that students take in the fall, winter, and spring. After the spring assessment, each student is given a goal for the next year. The average school will have 50% of their students reach their goal. This past year 52.7% of our students reached their reading goal and 54.7% reached their math goal. While this is not where we want to be we are continuing to improve each year. At the high school level, we use the state ACT scores to measure our academic achievement. The goal of the district is to have our 3-year average outperform the state’s 3-year average. We use the 3-year average so we do not have large variance in the scores due to class size numbers being under 50 students. This past year our average ACT composite is 18.03 with the state average of 18.97. While we have not moved passed the state average I have no doubt next year we will exceed the state average as we have improved our scores each of the past 3 years. In regards to the number of graduates returning to the area, we do not have hard data that gives an exact percentage of former graduates who return to Pleasanton but we do see a large number of former graduates back in our area. These former students are also enrolling their children in our schools, contributing to our increase in student enrollment.
Question:
Has your board been using Special Building Funding allocations to prepare for this project?
Answer:
To answer this question I believe it is important to know a little about our district’s financial history. In December 2020, the district had to wait to pay the December bills as we did not have enough money in our general fund until we received our taxes from the county. This shortfall was due to the district not wanting to over-tax our patrons but in hindsight, it left the district in a bad financial position. To recover from that position this board set a goal to stabilize our general fund so could weather a financial storm. To build up the general fund the district gradually increased the levy to the point we are now close to having approximately 3 months of reserves in our general fund. The state and our auditor recommend we have 3-6 months of reserves. I say all this to answer your question regarding the use of Special Building Funds. The board did not believe we should burden our taxpayers with an increased levy to build up the Special Building Fund while trying to build up the general fund so we only levied a small amount for our Special Building Fund. In 2023 the state also put a 3% revenue cap when combining the General Fund and Special Building Fund thus making it very challenging to increase any revenue for the Special Building Fund. I am proud to say not only have we built up our general fund over the past 4 years we accomplished this while having to increase our staffing needs to handle our growing enrollment all while still facing the challenge of having a very small district valuation.
Question:
Why are we not adding restrooms, especially for females. I understand and heard from my daughter before she graduated restrooms were already an issue.
Answer:
Thank you for the question. Since the beginning of the process, we have discussed many ideas and options constantly trying to balance our wants while maintaining a budget that we feel is fair to our community. While the current design does not include additional restrooms the designs are conceptual and definitely not final. It is important to know that the number of existing restroom facilities and fixtures are sized to meet the current codes. The codes used are based on numbers for events in the gym which typically have a greater number of occupants than the number of occupants on a typical school day. I would also like to point out that while the current restroom facilities would meet all code requirements that does not mean it would be ideal to only have one set of restrooms in our 7-12. Restrooms will be one of our priorities we will continue to discuss as we work toward our final design.
Question:
How many new residences have been constructed and are now inhabited in our district since the last bond?
Conversely, is there any data on the number of homes demolished or that became uninhabited since the last school bond.
Answer:
We do not have an easy way to count the number of homes built since the last bond but we do have a way to calculate new value being added to our district valuation. The school district’s valuation is calculated by adding increases to the existing valuations and adding any new valuation “known as Real Growth”. Real growth is defined as new construction, additions to existing buildings, and improvements to real property which increases the value of such property. In the last 3 years, our district valuation has added $10,142,185 or .91% per year in real growth.
Answer:
I heard we only get money from the state for two years for option students. Is that correct?
Answer:
No, that is not correct. The school district continues to receive money for option students as long as they attend Pleasanton Public Schools. This revenue comes through Foundation Aid and Equalization Aid. This past year, Pleasanton received over $450,000 in revenue from the state due to our option enrollment numbers. Without this revenue, we would have to tax our local patrons for that amount to balance our budget.