Lubbock Independent School District’s $290 million bond is drawing attention and raising questions about local public schools as another school year comes to a close.
According to Lubbock ISD, the bond will fund three new elementary school campuses, two middle school additions, infrastructure upgrades across the district, and expanded facilities for LISD’s career and technical education programs in middle school.
It is the only item on most Lubbock ballots for the May 3 local election. Read more on the bond from Lubbock ISD here.
On April 22, the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce, the Lubbock Association of Realtors, and others announced a “broad coalition” of support for the bond, joining with a local political action committee to promote the initiative.
All 42 campus PTAs also endorsed the bond election, according to Lubbock ISD Council of PTAs President Elizabeth Bowen.
Melynn Henry, a Lubbock ISD mother and co-chair of the Moving Ahead PAC, said she personally knows what other parents felt when LISD recommended school closure and consolidations in Nov. 2024. Her own children attended a school that was the result of consolidation in a previous bond election.
“Most of all, it benefits me as a citizen who lives in the core and wants to see continued development and investment inside the loop in Lubbock,” Henry said.
Lubbock ISD officials say voters approving this bond will secure a more stable cash flow for the district that will fund vital upgrades at schools. But critics of the bond, made up of conservative political groups and PACs, have argued that the effort is a misuse of taxpayer money meant to create business for local construction and development firms.
This battle has fueled fights at local forums and a flurry of yard signs across the city.
It is part of the district’s longterm fight to secure more consistent and efficient funding, amid stagnant state funding and local school closures and consolidations.
Lubbock ISD Chief Operating Officer Rick Rodriguez said however the election turns out, he wants voters to be informed.
“I would encourage them to fact-check us, because I think our website is very transparent. I think it says what we do. It is very factual about the bond,” Rodriguez said. “I think there's folks that are trying to mislead and misinform, and so that's what I would ask, just look at the bond.”
Early voting runs through Tuesday, April 29, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Polling locations will be open at all United, Market Street and Amigos stores, as well as some Lubbock ISD schools. You can find a full list of early voting locations and times here.
Election Day is Saturday, May 3, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. A full list of election day locations can be found here.
Construction and contributions for Lubbock public schools
One of the businesses that finds itself in the crosshairs of the bond’s critics is Lubbock-based architecture and engineering firm Parkhill Smith and Cooper, Inc.
Superintendent Dr. Kathy Rollo's husband, Robert Rollo, is also a Principal and Director of Federal Practice at the firm. While the superintendent has signed a conflict of interest disclosure form noting her husband’s firm has been a vendor for the district, his primary experience is in federal design contracts in international markets.
About 13 companies and trusts made up 75% of the Moving Ahead PAC’s $79,318 in contributions, according to an April 3 campaign finance report covering April 4 through April 23. Many of those entity donations came from competing construction and architecture firms.
Parkhill, Smith and Cooper employees donated just over $4,100, or 5% of the PAC’s total funds.
According to Parkhill, the company has been advising on the development of public school projects in Texas for 30 years.
These recently include the new Liberty High School campus in Lubbock-Cooper ISD and Lubbock ISD’s Anita Carmona-Harrison Elementary school, which voters approved in the November 2018 bond. This $130 million bond was the last in Lubbock ISD since 2010 and did not change LISD’s portion of the local tax rate.
According to Superintendent Rollo, the consolidation of Wright, Guadalupe and Jackson Elementary schools into one campus — Carmona-Harrison — in 2018 saved $1.8 million in operational expenses in the first year.
Lubbock ISD’s Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Dewayne Wilkins, explained that companies that consider bidding for a school project will each follow the same procedure in applying for the district’s “request for proposal,” or RFP. Because of the district’s limited resources, Wilkins said it often comes down to the companies that can make the most cost-efficient bid.
“The decision-making process would be put before the board, and the board would then look at all the deciding criteria and then decide on which company to go with,” Wilkins said.
The Lubbock ISD financial department has long faced uncertainty surrounding the district’s resources.
A new $8 billion round of state public school support has received preliminary approval in the Texas Legislature, with the goal of providing more money to each district in per-student funding and increasing teacher pay. The bill passed alongside Gov. Greg Abbott’s Education Savings Account program, which will give parents up to $10,000 in taxpayer money to pay for private or homeschool costs.
Gov. Abbott has yet to sign either bill.
A major selling point for Lubbock ISD has been that this bond will not affect its $0.17 contribution to the tax rate.
But some have questioned how that could be possible with the debt from a $290 million bond. That’s because the bond will be sold in phases, according to the district. Wilkins explained that as bonds are paid off over time, those 17 cents can become more valuable.
“Those funds go into an escrow account. It is then used to pay off bonds early,” Wilkins said. “We typically pay off bonds early, anywhere from six to eight years early. Therefore, we're able to keep a steady tax rate.”
Through this planning process, Wilkins said his office wants to prioritize transparency for Lubbock ISD taxpayers, who are the basis for the local funding portion of the district’s budget.
“We have a financial transparency website located on the web page that we keep updated that has anything, from audits to budgets to anything that's currently going on in the financial side of things with the district,” Wilkins said.
It’s on the ballot: misinformation circulates about school bond
The bond was the subject of much speculation at a local forum at St. John’s United Methodist Church on April 24.
Jim Baxa, a homeschool father who took his seat on the board of directors for the Lubbock Central Appraisal District after running unopposed in May 2024, showed up to encourage citizens to vote against it.
Baxa believes the bond would increase debt for the district and tax rates for Lubbock homeowners while sending public money to construction companies responsible for building new schools.
“It's right on the ballot,” Baxa said, referring to the state-mandated language saying “this is a tax increase” on every ballot proposition to approve debt obligations like city or school bonds.
Lubbock ISD School Board Trustee Nancy Sharp tried to quell rumors about the bond. Hitting back at Baxa personally, she pointed to public information data indicating he is the owner of six single-family residential properties in Lubbock.
According to publicly available data from the Lubbock Central Appraisal District, school taxes on three of Baxa’s properties in Lubbock have gone down since LISD’s last bond election passed in 2018. Meanwhile, U.S. Census Bureau data has shown average monthly housing costs in Lubbock have gone up for renters by more than $200 since 2019, and the costs for those paying a mortgage have gone up more than $300.
Lubbock ISD’s portion of the tax rate has not changed since the 2016-2017 school year, when it dropped by two cents, despite passing a school bond a year later. The total tax rate for schools in 2025 is 90.8 cents per $100 valuation, more than 30 cents lower than the total tax rate in 2018 and the lowest it's been in Lubbock ISD since 1993. Most of that adjustment has come from tax compression at the state level.
The Conservative Action Network PAC has placed signs around the city telling voters to reject the bond.
Lubbock Republican and PAC Treasurer Deanne Clark wrote an op-ed in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on April 18 opposing the bond. Clark donated 71% of the PAC’s $9,795 in a single contribution individually, according to campaign finance reports filed April 22.
The Conservative Action Network PAC has also taken to social media, trying to convince voters that the bond measure and its ensuing new schools are unnecessary. The Young Conservatives of Texas Tech chapter joined the opposition, calling the bond a “bloated” and “irresponsible” use of taxpayer dollars.
But the Lubbock County Republican Party has taken a neutral stance on the election, calling for all voters to be well-informed and encouraging “thorough research and respectful dialogue on all matters affecting our community.”
Some opponents have argued that the bond’s consolidation of older, smaller schools in Lubbock limits parents' “school choice,” often in low-income and minority communities. Others have suggested that temporary, portable classrooms may be a cheaper option for schools in need of renovation.
According to Lubbock ISD, 63% of the district’s campuses are more than 60 years old.
At Thursday’s forum, Trustee Sharp presented Bean Elementary School in central Lubbock as an example of one of Lubbock’s oldest schools in need of maintenance.
Bean Elementary opened in 1940, first built to house 60 students. After December’s decision to combine Bean and Hodges Elementary, LISD said portable classrooms may be necessary anyway, depending on how many of Hodges’ more than 200 students transfer.
Read more: Hodges students moving to Bean Elementary after Lubbock ISD Board approves closure, consolidations
If the bond is approved, Bean could see part of the largest portions of funding, with $151 million going to three new elementary school campuses replacing consolidations at Wolffarth-McWhorter, Williams-Stewart, and Bean-Hodges, as well as additions at Rush and Atkins Middle Schools.
Baxa suggested bonds should not be approved until a district is actually growing.
Lubbock ISD’s transfer policy allows parents to choose whether to send their children to a local school or one in an adjacent district, such as Frenship ISD or Lubbock-Cooper ISD.
Both Trustee Sharp and Melynn Henry pointed to declining enrollment numbers and aging infrastructure as problems that need to be addressed in Lubbock ISD in order to encourage parents and students to return to LISD schools.
Meanwhile, staff and administrators at Lubbock ISD are trying to plan ahead for the next semester, when Lubbock students will be in class regardless of the outcome of this bond.
Supporters and voter participation
In addition to the PTA and local Democratic Party, the business community is also largely supportive of bonds that have helped fund school consolidations and upgrades.
Texas economist Ray Perryman has long promoted that investment in public education serves as “the highest return on investment of any public or private sector investment,” yielding $56.76 in returns for every dollar spent to improve public schools, with benefits to the private sector from increased student productivity and reduced government spending with volunteerism and civic participation.
Robert Wood, chairman of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, described the consolidation of six older schools into three new buildings as a “more efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars.”
“Businesses coming or expanding here want to know that we are interested in investing in ourselves,” Wood said.
Andrea Sturdivant, 2025 President of the Lubbock Association of Realtors, said the organization’s 1,700 members and businesses endorsed Proposition A as an “investment in the core of our community.”
“As realtors, we know families want to live in neighborhoods where new schools are built, where existing schools are enhanced and maintained,” Sturdivant said.
Like many parents in the district, LISD COO Rick Rodriguez said he is concerned about the future of Lubbock’s schools and wants other parents to have active and transparent roles in deciding that future.
“I'm biased, obviously, because I work for Lubbock ISD, but I was also a parent,” Rodriguez said. “My two kiddos graduated from Lubbock High and many times I had to take off my work hat and put on my dad hat so I could volunteer.”
From joining the PTA or the Community Leadership Academy to providing snacks or rides for students, Rodriguez encouraged community members to participate in their local schools and ask questions of Lubbock ISD staff and administrators.
Lubbock ISD’s Future Focus Committee, an assembly of more than 120 parents, staff and stakeholders invited by the Board of Trustees, made the recommendation for this year’s bond package, initially identifying $400 million in needs for the district.
The district also held bond meeting town halls at schools across the district to give community members the chance to participate and ask questions — but few citizens have shown up. Turnout has also been low historically in bond elections, with just 11% of registered voters casting a ballot in May 2018.
In that election, 530 votes made the difference on a proposition that approved the demolition of the Lubbock Municipal Auditorium and Coliseum.
In May 2019, a Lubbock County road bond for $99 million brought 6.5% of registered voters to the polls, and more than 65% of voters approved the proposition.
“We're doing everything we can to try to engage our community,” Rodriguez said.
May 2021 saw an astounding, but not unprecedented, turnout for a city and school election.
The city proposition to make Lubbock a “sanctuary city for the unborn” brought out more than 34,000 voters, with 62% voting in favor. The highest turnout for a city proposition has been the same since 2009, when more than 50,000 Lubbock voters cast a ballot and 65% approved allowing package alcohol sales inside city limits.
This year, more than 4,300 ballots have been cast in the first half of early voting, according to the Lubbock County Elections Office. That accounts for about 2% of Lubbock county’s registered voters.
Whatever the results of this election, Rodriguez said Lubbock ISD will have a responsibility when children return from summer break.
“We're going to do what we’ve got to do to teach kids,” Rodriguez said. “Because there's going to be 24,000 kids that are going to show up in August and be expected to be taught, and we will rise to that occasion, no matter what happens.”