{"id":1391478,"date":"2025-02-20T06:22:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T12:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1391478"},"modified":"2025-02-20T06:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T12:42:28","slug":"athens-isd-calls-for-121-5m-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1391478","title":{"rendered":"Athens ISD calls for $121.5M bond"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATHENS \u2014 \"\"Athens ISD board of trustees voted on Feb. 13 to call a $121.5 million bond election to address aging facilities by making improvements and new additions to educational spaces, according to our news partners at KETK. According to Athens ISD Superintendent Dr. Janie Sims, in Spring of 2024 the board of trustees came up with four goals for the district: academic excellence, exemplary employees, safe schools and the resources for students to succeed. From there, the board invited community members including teachers, parents and high school students to participate in a committee to talk about the four goals for the district and the needs for each campus.<\/p>\n

The board used the committee\u2019s list of proposed ideas to create the bill that would address the district goals and impact each student from early childhood to early college.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter getting the report from the facilities committee, we spent many hours in workshop meetings discussing what we might cut from their recommendations,\u201d Board President Alicea Elliott said. \u201cThe answer was \u2018nothing\u2019; we couldn\u2019t in good conscious sacrifice one thing we believe our students truly need \u2014 especially when it won\u2019t cause a single penny of increase to our tax rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Sims, there will be no increase in the AISD tax rate if the bond passes due to their \u201cstrong credit rate and historically conservative leadership\u201d within their board of trustees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want Athens ISD to be the educational heart of East Texas and in order to achieve that we need to address our facilities,\u201d Sims said.<\/p>\n

The proposed projects on the bill include:<\/p>\n

A new early childhood center for all preK-3, preK-4 and kindergarten students
\n New wing at Athens High School to accommodate early college students
\n New auditorium at AHS
\n Renovations to the AHS library
\n Ag science barn
\n New drop-off\/pick-up driveway behind Athens Middle School
\n New CTE classroom for 8th grade construction students
\n Covered activity center at AHS
\n Renovations at South Athens, Bel Air and Central Athens Elementary<\/p>\n

Sims says she would not be doing her job correctly as superintendent if she is not looking at the future of the district and to make it a place where all students can prosper.
\nCentral ISD proposes $33 million bond to improve campuses<\/p>\n

\u201cA place where we can say that we have worked hard to address the needs of every child in every program whether it\u2019s athletics, fine arts or early learning.\u201d Sims said.<\/p>\n

The district said that an informational website and printed materials are being developed to explain the bond package more in detail. Early voting begins April 22 and ends April 29 with election day on May 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATHENS \u2014 Athens ISD board of trustees voted on Feb. 13 to call a $121.5 million bond election to address aging facilities by making improvements and new additions to educational spaces, according to our news partners at KETK. According to Athens ISD Superintendent Dr. Janie Sims, in Spring of 2024 the board of trustees came … Continue reading Athens ISD calls for $121.5M bond<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1391479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2018\/12\/Athens-ISD-e1740054127505-196x200.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 17:27:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2018\/12\/Athens-ISD-e1740054127505-196x200.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1391478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1391481,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391478\/revisions\/1391481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1391479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1391478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1391478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1391478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}