Redmond School District Superintendent Charan Cline is optimistic about the passage of a proposed $97 million bond measure this November for repairs across the district, including Redmond High School’s heating and cooling system and roof.

The impending failure of the high school’s HVAC system forced the district to consider a merger of Redmond and Ridgeview High School so the work could be done without students or staff in the building. In May, the district decided to keep Redmond High open, and is now working on plans to complete the repairs.

The district always planned for another bond measure after the one voters passed in 2020, which paid for work ranging from roof replacement to water bottle stations at schools across the district. The $27.5 million 2020 bond projects will wrap up this summer. Both bond measures focus on increasing safety and security across the district.

“The vast majority of the work we’re going to do on this stuff is about simply maintaining the buildings that we have and making sure they remain in great shape into the future,” said Cline of the future bond.

Getting the details finalized

The proposed bond measure is expected to be presented to the Redmond School Board on Wednesday, June 26. If the board approves it, a political action committee will be formed to raise money to campaign for its passage.

Read more: Redmond School District wraps up 2020 bond projects

“It’s mostly right now getting the details finalized before we make an official proposal towards the community,” said Cline. “This has been a long-term plan to keep revitalizing the schools without raising people’s tax rate, and that’s important.”

If approved, the new bond measure would hit district property owners’ tax bills just as the old one is expiring.

The district is working to finalize the list of projects across the district other than the work on Redmond High. Other projects might include new bathrooms for the independent living skills classrooms in M.A. Lynch Elementary and energy efficiency work across the district, said Cline. Work needed on Redmond High’s HVAC system includes asbestos containment and piping repairs.

“No one understood how much repair Redmond High School was going to need at that point, so we’ll put a big chunk of the money, a very significant percentage of the money, into redoing the roof, the heating system and removing asbestos, and then updating its (career and technical education) facilities, its theater, its athletic spaces,” said Cline.

Cline estimated that overall the district has around $300 million worth of repairs. The district uses long-term facility assessments, reports from maintenance staff and a staff survey to help plan which projects to work on and when. A group of community members also met for five months to help prioritize projects.

In late May, Chad Franke, regional director of the company managing the 2020 bond, estimated the cost of the piping repairs, the roof and the asbestos containment at Redmond High to be between $17 million and $19 million.

Logistics of repairs

The district is currently planning to bring in portable classrooms when Redmond High is shut down for a year so repairs can be made. Cline estimated that might take place during the 2025-26 school year or the year after. In April, he said portable classrooms would cost $2.5 million.

Students would still be able to access the gymnasium and the career and technical education classes for most of the year. Likely during the summer, the school would close those areas so repairs could be made, said Cline.

Cline feels that people are interested in making sure Redmond’s schools are maintained over time.

“Doing projects like this, it’s an immense amount of coordination, and there’s a whole lot of people involved. It’s hard to predict exactly how long it’s going to take,” said Cline. “We’ll do our best to get it done with haste, because those pipes, we don’t know when they’re gonna go.”