The proposed new Early College High School is seen in this rendering. The Tyler ISD board has approved placing an $89 million bond package on the May ballot, including $26 million for the Early College High School.

The Tyler ISD board on Thursday approved putting a bond package totaling $89 million on the May ballot.

Of the $89 million, $63 million would go toward a new Hubbard Middle School, including replacement of the 55-year-old campus comparable to the 2013 Boulter, Moore and Three Lakes projects, according to information from the district.

The new Hubbard campus would be built on a site designed to exact specifications as other middle schools. It would hold 1,200 students and have updated safety and security features and improved traffic flow and designated parking areas, the district said.

A new Early College High School would cost $26 million and would be built next to the Tyler ISD Career and Technology Center.

The campus would hold more than 650 students, according to the district.

“Not only are construction prices going up, but interest rates appear to be hiking up as well,” Tyler ISD Board President Wade Washmon said at Thursday’s meeting. “As far as timing goes, I do agree that this is the right time to finish (and) kind of put a bow on our building program that the community has supported over the last 20 years.”

The new Hubbard campus and Early College High School are like “the last two puzzle pieces of a 20-year plan,” Washmon said. Tyler ISD had been working to essentially rebuild the school district, and this bond is “one more ask” from the community, he added.

The bonds to rebuild schools in Tyler ISD began in the early 2000s. The project began with new elementary schools, rebuilding middle schools, building the Career and Technology Center and the new high school campuses.

Before the bond initiatives, the buildings had not been touched since being built in the 1940s through the 1950s, Washmon said. This led to safety and security issues and made it more expensive to keep them operating, he said.

“Tyler deserves it,” he said. “We’re a great town, we’re a beautiful town, and our educational expectations need to show in our facilities.”

Washmon said, if passed, the bond package would not change the district’s tax rate. The tax rate has “actually gotten lower over the last couple of years, and we intend to keep lowering it,” he added.

“(We’re) very cognizant of the fact that we live in a conservative community that cares about where their pennies and nickels and dimes go,” he said.

In May 2017, voters passed Tyler ISD’s largest bond package yet — $198 million — by the widest margin of any bond in recent years with 83 percent in favor of the move. After community input, the bond brought multimillion dollar renovations to Tyler High School and Tyler Legacy High School.

The bond allowed Tyler High to have “every square foot” of its property redone completely after five years of work. Legacy’s decades-old facility also saw state-of-the-art improvements after four years of extensive renovations and additions.

Altogether, the renovations were estimated to cost around $220 million, but the district used savings from its 2013 bond package to reduce the cost.

Before the 2017 bond, the last bond referendum passed in 2013 at over $165 million. It was used to renovate Dixie and Rice elementary schools, rebuild Boulter and Moore middle schools on their existing sites and construction of Three Lakes Middle School and the new Career and Technology Center.

The 2013 bond projects were completed on time and under budget, according to Tyler ISD.