School bond issues up for vote Tuesday

By Carolyn Cole/The Mustang News

Voters will decide Tuesday whether to approve a $10.9 million bond issue for Mustang Schools that will, in part, pay to construct a new elementary school.

The school would be built just south of West state Highway 152 on Czech Hall Road on 21 acres of land. It will house up to 650 students and could open as early as August 2006. The district bought the land, which backs into the Heights addition, last spring using MAPS for Kids funds.

The bonds are expected to increase property owners’ taxes by 3.5 percent for the first two years. An owner of a $50,000 home would see an increase of $19.62 in property taxes per year. An owner of a $100,000 home would pay $43 more a year in property taxes and a person with a $150,000 home would pay $66.72 per year more in property taxes. After two years, other bond issues will be paid off, potentially decreasing the tax rate.

When the board approved sending the bond issue to a districtwide vote, Chris Cochran, senior vice president of Capital West Securities Inc, the district’s financial adviser, said these were conservative estimates, and the impact could be less depending on the interest rate at which the bonds are sold at after the election.

Voters will consider the funds in two propositions, $10.4 million for construction costs and school equipment and $500,000 to pay for buses and transportation. State law requires construction and building costs to be considered separately from transportation funding.

The first proposition mostly addresses elementary school construction costs but also includes other building and maintenance costs in the district:

• Constructing, equipping and furnishing a new elementary school at $7.46 million.
• Repairing and replacing roofing at Mustang Mid-High School at $825,000
• Getting and installing heating and air conditioning equipment at Mustang High School and Mustang Mid-High School at $300,000.
• Constructing, remodeling, renovating and equipping the vocational agriculture facility at Mustang High School at $750,000.
• Purchasing maintenance vehicles and equipment at $30,000.
• Constructing, equipping and furnishing a new soccer facility and softball locker facility at $935,000.

The second proposition seeks $500,000 for school transportation equipment, including passenger buses and a vocational agricultural truck.

Mustang Superintendent Karl Springer said last month at least 1,700 homes are in some stage of construction around the district and the growing student population needs this elementary school. He said he expects an increase of 350 students in fall 2005, putting the school population at about 7,800. Mustang schools had 7,193 students enrolled last school year and has 7,447 students this year. Also the district may face having to implement full day kindergarten in two or three years, depending on what is mandated by the state Legislature this spring.

“If we want to keep low class sizes, have well-lit wonderful facilities for our children to go to school in we have to step out there,” he said. “The way it’s going as far as population increases, I think probably every three or four years we are looking at a new building if this continues.”

Springer has recently mentioned the school district’s long range plans include building another elementary in the north central part of the district and a secondary school in the northwest quadrant of the district. If the bond issue isn’t passed on Tuesday, he said it could set the district back by about two years.

Sixty percent of voters must vote in favor of the bond issue for it to pass.

'Forgotten' pills get student suspended

By Carolyn Cole/The Mustang News

Parent Maxie Barber said his eighth-grade daughter was suspended for forgetfulness.

Chloe Smith, an honors student at Mustang Middle School, was suspended Friday when school officials found a prescription drug in her purse — levonorgestral and ethinyl estradiol tablets, which are hormones the girl takes for a polycystic ovarian disease. She said she had put the pills in her purse Thursday night when she went out to dinner after a school band concert. Smith said she took the pills with her so she would remember to take them after she ate.

The problem is Smith forgot they were in her purse when she left for school the next morning. The school happened to be visited by drug dogs on Friday and whether the dogs responded to the hormone pills is unclear, Barber said.

“They pulled one girl out and then they got me,” Smith said. “They asked me if they could go through my stuff and I told them they could.  They went in and found my pills that I had forgotten to take out the night before, because after the band concert we went out to eat. They sent me to the office and I was suspended for bringing  my pills to school and not turning them into the office.”

Now, Smith and her family have been given two options. Under the school district’s drug policy, Smith can either be suspended for the rest of the school year, or complete a 10-day suspension and then undergo frequent drug testing and eight hours of counseling.

“For something she has a prescription for, she’s out for the rest of the year,” Barber said.

Bonnie Lightfoot, deputy superintendent, said any  family that questions an administrator’s decision can appeal the decision. In those cases, a hearing is held and the administrators meet with parents to discuss the situation.

“I feel we have a policy which safeguards and protects all students,” she said.

The school district’s policy requires parents to give any medication a student might need — prescription or over the counter — to the school office along with any special instructions from the doctor. Students requiring medicine must go to the office for it, unless otherwise prescribed by a doctor.

“They cannot keep it on their person,” Lightfoot said. “We can’t control if another child gets a hold of the medicine. What is fine for me may not be fine for someone else.”

However in Smith’s case, she doesn’t usually take the medicine at school, so the administration had never been told about the prescription. She said she wouldn’t have normally had the pills with her except she forgot they were in her purse.

Lightfoot said the district cannot have staff deciding what a drug is on a case by case basis.

“We cannot put ourselves in a position of analyzing what a drug is… Our policy deals with over the counter, prescription and illicit drug and a committee of teachers, parents and administrators review it every year,” she said.

Barber said normally he agrees with zero tolerance drug policies, but his daughter doesn’t have a problem.

“I can’t believe they can’t use common sense…that they can’t say OK, this is an understandable mistake,” he said.

Barber added, “(Chloe) and her mom cried all weekend. Her friends are calling. She’s afraid of losing respect from her teachers. She’s in their honors classes. She keeps her grades up and working toward college.”

Barber said he’s called the American Civil Liberties Union and they’ve expressed interest in the case.  He said he wants to pursue it because he doesn’t want his daughter to admit to a drug problem she doesn’t have.

Attorney to draft policy for council-board communication

By Fawn Porter/The Mustang News

Without a penalty, two City Council members are promising not to follow any proposed policy aimed at controlling how city leaders and municipal board members communicate.

“We can make this policy but if it is not code and it is not law and there is no ramifications to it, I will still continue to attend board meetings and be involved in the community,” Mayor Chad McDowell said.

Despite his concerns, the Council voted 4-2 Tuesday  to direct City Attorney Ted Pool to draft the policy. City officials said any such policy, while not law, would be a public statement for new Council and board members to use as a guideline. There would be no repercussions if the policy was violated.

Councilman Darrell Noblitt had asked for the policy to discuss how Council members  communicate with appointed officials after he was approached by “several board members” who had concerns about conversations they had with the mayor.   

Noblitt said he did not bring any wording for the policy to the table because he did not want it to be something he created.

“Our boards work best when they are not political hotbeds,” he said, adding Council members are reminded that contact with board members could be construed as political pressure and boards and commissions are set up to be free of that pressure.

“I think they (board and commission members) are appointed for a reason,” Noblitt said. “And that is so that they are isolated from public pressure.”

He said he’d like to reach a Council consensus on a guideline to follow.

Councilman Keith Bryan said he did not have a problem with the city attorney bringing back such a policy as long as it did not limit the Council’s rights as citizens, adding he welcomed it when anyone approached him.

The push for a policy was sparked after McDowell approached three board of adjustments members and talked with them about a dirt mining permit they had twice denied.

The mayor has said he only told board members his opinion and was in no way “intimidating” them. In a November meeting, board members said they did not feel “intimidated.”

In his push for the policy, Noblitt said the charter is clear that the Council is to set policy.

Councilwoman Linda Hagan, said she did not think a policy was needed. She said she wanted to maintain the right to speak with boards about her opinions.

“I want to be able to be free to talk to anyone … and tell them how I feel about something,” she said.