Lawton Public Schools issuing bonds to fund new projects, continue existing ones

Lawton Public Schools is issuing a new round of general obligation bonds, the latest in a series of annual measures taken to provide funding for upgrades across the district or cover the cost of upgrades already made.

School board members voted earlier this week to sell two new series of 2024 general obligation bonds: $10.21 million and $790,000. While specific projects still are being evaluated, continuation is expected on work such as a new safe room for Ridgecrest Elementary in northwest Lawton and security fencing planned for the Eisenhower and MacArthur secondary school campuses.

Superintendent Kevin Hime said the majority of revenue from the $10.12 million general obligation bond is allocated for the annual payment that LPS makes to cover what was its first major project, $60 million in work focused on building construction that included safe rooms in eight elementary schools. He estimated about $8 million of the $10.21 million is tied to retiring that debt, leaving almost $3 million that can be used on buses, technology and other work.

Hime said the district hasn’t yet set all the projects that will be funded this year, beyond continuing those already in progress. Those include one of the most visible ones, security fencing upgrades at secondary school campuses.

The district also is continuing its safe room project, rooms built specifically to withstand tornadoes and other storms and large enough to hold the entire school population. While the rooms are a safety feature, the multi-purpose facilities also are used on a daily basis for other activities, such as classrooms and libraries. Hime said the cost of safe rooms already installed in eight schools is the largest part of the pending bond debt the district pays on each year.

A new safe room is planned this year at Ridgecrest Elementary in northwest Lawton.

The district also is continuing its security fencing project at secondary schools (elementary sites already are done). Work is nearing completion on the first: surrounding Central Middle School and Lawton High School with fencing to create one secure campus. The district will do the same for MacArthur High and MacArthur Middle schools, and Eisenhower High and Eisenhower Middle schools.

The selected projects reflect the district’s determination to strictly adhere to what residents were told when the original bond issue was brought up for vote in 2017.

“We are following all the projects,” Hime said, of plans to complete already outlined projects while also looking at other priorities that may occur in the meantime.

He said district officials want to be able to tell voters at the end of the 10-year program that projects were completed as promised, so the district can be trusted to follow a new project list it will will craft for a new bond proposal in 2027 or 2028.

The funding is important because it is allowing Lawton Public Schools to tackle critical projects.

“It definitely helps,” Hime said, adding the district matched the bond funds with state funding for the safe rooms, other construction projects and digital technology upgrades, such as providing computers (such as Chromebooks) for every student in the district.

He said those technology upgrades were crucial and would have been difficult to achieve for almost 14,000 students without the additional funding.