This file photo shows an entrance at Bend High School in 2016.

Bend-La Pine Schools will decide in a public meeting Tuesday whether to seek a bond of about $250 million to pay for classrooms, improvements to buildings and athletic fields and more at Bend High School, along with other projects around the district.

The measure, if passed by voters in the upcoming November election, would fund 87 projects that the district’s sites and facilities committee deemed priorities needing to be addressed within the next five years.

Because there is no funding source for these projects, the committee is recommending the school board place on the ballot a general obligation bond. According to the district’s meeting agenda, “these funds could be generated without increasing the current property tax levy amount.”

Melissa Barnes Dholakia, chair of the school board, said Monday that the bond would finance remaining projects of a “master plan” for improving facilities at Bend High School. The funds would go toward its tech building, theater and the brand new Robert D. Maxwell Center.

The funds would also go toward replacing the school’s existing buildings and fields.

According to the committee’s plan, more than $178.2 million would go toward Bend High, far more than any other school.

In addition, the bond would finance some remaining security improvements, new door-lock systems, roofs, fire alarms and the addition of multipurpose instruction spaces.

The committee, however, is not anticipating that the district will need new schools to accommodate its students, citing a Portland State University Population Research Center model that suggested the district will have ample facilities to meet enrollment needs over the next decade.

After years of growing enrollment, the committee reported in February that it was expecting a significant reduction in student enrollment, echoing statewide trends driven by the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on schooling.

Voters have passed two bond measures for Bend-La Pine Schools over the past decade. The latest came in 2017 and allocated a record-setting $268.3 million for a new elementary school, high school and at least 150 projects in facilities throughout the district. District spokespersons say that the projects funded through that bond measure will be largely complete this summer.

During the May election cycle, eight school districts, mostly in rural Oregon, proposed bond measures that failed. Administrators in several school districts attributed those failures to worsening economic conditions, including inflation and rising gasoline prices.

Among the school districts whose bond measures failed was Crook County, which sought $66 million for aging facilities. Jason Carr, a district spokesperson, said the district might go back out for the bond next May.

The Bend-La Pine School Board meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and will be held virtually. The public can attend by visiting bls.fyi/boardmeeting.