To better assist the public in making an informed decision, McAllen ISD has created a series of podcasts on the upcoming bond election. These podcasts explain different aspects of the bond in bite-sized chunks.
The first video podcast features McAllen ISD Superintendent Dr. René Gutiérrez who discusses the overall vision. The bond proposal is for $335 million and will address facility upgrades, program expansions, safety, security and modernizing learning spaces across the district. Early voting runs April 20-28 and the Election Day is May 2.
“The overall analysis of our proposed bond for 2026 is to make our facilities better,” Dr. Gutierrez said during the podcast. “It’s been long overdue for our kids and our school district. This (bond) puts us in a perfect opportunity to propose this bond to be able to do a districtwide improvement of all our schools.”
McAllen ISD’s periodic podcast is called Extra Credit. Each episode features McAllen ISD Marketing and Communications Director Felicia Villarreal as the host with a guest. They discuss topics of interest to the McAllen ISD community.
Dr. Gutiérrez also addressed why calling for a bond this spring was so important.
“Financially, we’ve been very responsible as a school district over the years,” he said. “One of the things that we’ve done, specifically the last two years, is that we’ve been able to pay off some whole debt and some previous bonds early. It puts us in a perfect position to go out there and ask the community for this bond. We are going to maintain the same tax rate should they approve this bond.”
The district anticipates that the current overall tax rate of $0.93 will remain at $0.93, and that an increase to the overall tax rate to support the bond is not anticipated.
The Superintendent shared background on the two-year process that led up to calling for a bond. The district formed a committee, called the Facilities Forecast Advisory Committee, made up of district staff, school board members, parents, partners and community members. Projects were then prioritized.
“We need input from all stakeholders,” Dr. Gutierrez explained. “We also hired some consultants who helped us identify those needs. We did walk-throughs (at campuses). We feel that we got a lot of input. We feel that all of these projects that we are proposing have been vetted.”
The full episode, which is called McAllen ISD Extra Credit: The Vision – Bond Overview, can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7sqVGRtI5s.
Other podcasts on the 2026 bond will focus on finance, infrastructure plans, safety, program improvements and election information. They are available to view on McAllen ISD’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
More information on the bond can be found here: https://www.mcallenisdbond.org/.