March special election to decide Uniontown School District bond proposal

UNIONTOWN, Kan. — A little over a year ago, Uniontown, Kansas voters rejected two bond questions put on the ballot by their school district.

Now, school administrators are hoping a revamped approach will have a better fate.

"We knew we had some needs that really did need to be addressed," said Vance Eden, USD 235 Uniontown School District.

The "USD 235 Board of Education" has approved a resolution placing a 1 point 25 million dollar bond question on the next special election ballot.

This comes after voters rejected two propositions in November 2023.

"We found out of it once it failed. You know, maybe that wasn't that wasn't the biggest needs that the the district needed. So we went back to kind of went back to the drawing board," said Tyler Martin, USD 235 Board of Education Uniontown member.

USD 235 Board of Education members conducted several surveys asking the community what projects they felt were needed the most.

Using that feedback, the bond request was reduced by 86 percent.

"Got it paired down to a much smaller bond and just focused on three the three main projects," said Martin.

The largest of the three proposed projects: replacing two modular units at West Bourbon Elementary School with a permanent structure for the pre-school and offices for school psychology and speech therapy.

USD 235 Superintendent Vance Eden says the current units are 40 to 50 years old.

"Obviously, all construction is expensive and so we need to have a plan in place. So that we can make sure that we have, you know, that preschool program for years to come," said Eden.

The other two items include replacing the current fire alarm system at the high school --

"That works out pull stations but doesn't have smoke detection and also isn't monitored or it doesn't have like a call out feature that would automatically notify emergency dispatch," said Eden.

And renovating the main entrance at West Bourbon Elementary to be ADA accessible and more secure.

The question will be on the March 4 special election ballot.

Both Martin and Eden emphasize if this is approved - there would not a tax increase.

Eden says the hope would be to get some projects finished by August of 2027.

"The school district in a community like ours is the hub. And so we want people to yeah, we want to serve the people as they as they want to be served," said Eden.