Reply to Fleeing APS schools for FFX County

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I think you need to look back at the history of APS over the past few decades to understand it. APS enrollment peaked in in the early 1960s around 26,500 students and then began a period of decline marked by enrollment increases for a year or two followed by several years of declining enrollment. During this time, APS closed several schools that simply weren't needed anymore and turned those parcels over to the county so that APS didn't have to carry the maintenance expense of buildings it wasn't using. School enrollment finally bottomed out in the 1980s, during which time it bounced up and down around 15,000, a decrease of over 10,000 students from its high 20 years earlier. There wasn't a single dedicated school bond referendum from 1974 to 1987 because there was no need for major construction projects.

Around 1990, school enrollment started to rise again, peaking at around 18,000 students in 2001/2002. During this period of increase, voters (especially those whose children had already aged out of APS) resisted the idea of putting too much money into expanding school capacity because history told them enrollment was just going to fall again and they didn't want a lot of tax money wasted on creating new school seats that wouldn't be needed in a few years. Therefore, the school board (who also couldn't be certain enrollment increases would continue) only planned and requested bond funding for more modest projects, because they didn't want to risk having a bond fail.

Sure enough, after 2001/02, school population started to fall again, confirming for those voters that we shouldn't be putting money into expanding capacity. As recently as 2006, the Yorktown renovation was very controversial because, among other reasons, people felt it was a waste of money to spending $115k expanding a high school when school enrollment was declining. That turned around the next year, though, and since 2007 we have seen enormous increases every year in enrollment. Voters initially still resisted the idea that we needed more school seats because history told them enrollment was just going to fall again so we should make due with trailers in the meantime. 
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The story that you are trying to tell about the voters being resistant to putting money into schools is not supported by the results of the school bond referendums.
Since 1998, school bonds have passes with an average of 81% voting yes. The lowest passed with 73% of the votes. I am not seeing the resistant that you are talking about. In contrast, during the 60's and 70's four bonds failed and the eight that passed only had an average of 60% voting yes.
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