DALLAS - The Shawnee County Unified School District No. 501 serving Topeka, Kansas will ask voters to approve $143 million of bonds for a new elementary school, tornado shelters, classroom technology, a career learning center and other projects.
The election date has not been set but is expected to come on April 1, officials said. The school board approved the bond measure Jan. 6.
With about $22.4 million of outstanding debt, the district is two years away from retiring $74 million of bonds issued in 1995, 1999 and 2002. Those bonds were last refinanced in 2007. Moody's Investors Service rates the district Aa3 with a stable outlook.
The district's 1995 bond issue was related to the historic 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that overturned racial segregation in U.S. schools. In 1989, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that the district's board had not done enough to desegregate the schools.
To comply with court orders to integrate its student body, USD 501 issued $19.5 million of bonds to create magnet schools.
