The bond measure needs 60% to pass. I've been on this school board for nine years, and the conference room where we meet hasn't changed in that time. Same fluorescent lights humming overhead, same scuffed laminate table, same windows that look east toward the mountains. Tonight those mountains are backlit by late sun, their profiles sharp against orange sky. The facilities assessment sits in front of me, 220 pages documenting every failing HVAC system in the district.
Twenty-three schools need major work. The assessment prioritizes them by severity: buildings where indoor temperatures regularly exceed safe thresholds, where students are sent home early, where teachers choose between curriculum and student welfare. My grandson attends the elementary school that's number eighteen on the list. Last September his third-floor classroom hit 88 degrees by noon. His teacher opened the windows, but that just let in hotter air. He came home with his shirt stuck to his back, his face flushed, too exhausted to do homework.
If everything goes perfectly—if voters approve the bond, if we find contractors, if construction stays on schedule—his school gets climate control in 2039. He'll be in middle school by then.
The superintendent wants to phase the work over seven years. Even with bond funding, the district can only manage three or four major HVAC installations annually. The work requires specialized contractors, months of planning, summer construction windows when buildings are empty. This comes down to capacity, not will. How many buildings can actually be transformed in a year.
I know what the parent coalition will say. They've been organizing since spring, building a network across the district, demanding calendar restructuring instead of infrastructure timelines. Year-round schooling with distributed breaks. Concentrate learning in climate-controlled spaces during summer. Abandon the traditional September-to-June calendar that assumes moderate temperatures at both ends.
They're not wrong about the urgency. Last year the district used eleven heat days —days when buildings were too hot for safe learning and students went home early. This year we're budgeting for fifteen. Every heat day disrupts working parents' schedules, undermines learning continuity, proves the system is failing.
Calendar restructuring means renegotiating teacher contracts, rewriting state law requirements, coordinating shared facilities, and convincing families to abandon summer arrangements they've built their work lives around.
But calendar restructuring isn't a decision this board can make unilaterally. Teacher contracts specify work calendars negotiated over decades. State law requires 160 instructional days between specific dates. Year-round schooling means renegotiating every contract, rewriting transportation schedules, coordinating with the community college that shares our facilities, convincing parents to abandon summer childcare arrangements they've built their work lives around.
I've watched other districts try rapid transformation. Mesa County forced through calendar restructuring in 2031 over union objections. Within eighteen months, enrollment dropped 8% as families moved to neighboring districts with traditional schedules. The superintendent resigned. The board that replaced them reversed the policy. Three years of disruption, and they're back where they started.
The parent coalition sees this as cowardice—choosing institutional stability over student welfare. But institutions don't transform because board members will it. They transform when communities build consensus for change, when unions and parents and teachers and taxpayers all agree that disruption is worth the cost.
That consensus doesn't exist yet. The bond measure polling shows 54% support—not enough to pass. The calendar restructuring proposal polls worse. Most parents want their children in school during the traditional academic year. Most teachers want contracts that provide summer break. Most taxpayers don't want to fund the additional costs of year-round operations.
We're left with the infrastructure timeline. If the bond passes in November, we start HVAC work next summer at the three highest-priority schools. If it fails, we keep adding heat days to the calendar and pursuing state grants that might cover a fraction of the need.
The facilities director has calculated that full climate control across the district would cost $67 million—more than voters have ever approved in a single bond measure. Even if we got that funding tomorrow, the work would take a decade. There aren't enough contractors, enough summer construction windows, enough capacity in the system to move faster.
The board votes 6-1 to put the measure on the ballot. It's not heroic. It's what's actually possible when you're working within democratic constraints and institutional capacity. The parent coalition will call it inadequate, and they're right. But inadequate progress is still progress.
Walking to my car afterward, the parking lot asphalt still radiates heat though it's past eight. The mountains to the east are dark now, just silhouettes against deepening blue. I think about geological time—how those peaks rose over millions of years, how the climate that shaped them is transforming faster than human institutions can adapt. Seven years of phased construction while students keep learning in heat. My grandson in his classroom, waiting.
The cost of incrementalism is real. I've seen what happens when boards try to force transformation faster than their communities will support. The current system is failing—that's obvious. What's less obvious is whether we can build something better without collapsing what exists. I believe we can. The parent coalition believes we're already past that point.
Maybe we're both seeing part of the truth.