On Monday, the Auburn School District board of directors passed a resolution to put before voters a bond and a levy election on March 10, each carrying lasting implications for the district for decades to come.

Proposition One, titled “Auburn School District, Bonds for Replacement of Aging Schools, $239 million,” asks for improvements to aging facilities over the next 10 years, including the reconstruction and equipping of replacement schools for Auburn High School, Olympic Middle School and Terminal Park Elementary School.

District officials expect to issue the bond in at least three sales.

Proposition 2 titled, “Auburn School District School District Capital Improvements Levy,” authorizes the district to levy an additional tax, providing for a total of $46.4 million for the district’s capital projects fund for facilities improvements and equipment for six years. Starting in 2010, it would be collected in the school years from 2010-2011 through 2015 to 2016.

Since the middle 1980s, the school district has engaged in a capital facilities program to meet the needs of a growing student population and to modernize facilities so that kids at each school get the same learning opportunities.

The 2004-05 Citizens Ad Hoc Committee recommended that the district complete a thorough review of all facilities and assessed them against standards. The district’s Steering Committee for the Facilities Master Plan then reviewed this data, including cost estimates, in September and October, and decided which of the more than 2,700 items it should recommend to the school board for consideration for future bonds and capital levies.

Among the facility recommendations are the following:

• Provide improvements to facilities that are necessary during the next 10 years and are essential for the support of educational programs, school district services, building operations and building integrity.

• Do not provide improvements at Arthur Jacobsen Elementary, Lakeland Hills Elementary and Auburn Mountainview as they are new schools.

• Provide limited improvements at facilities recommended for replacement.

• Carefully consider the costs and benefits of improvements at facilities not recommended for replacement, but that will exceed their economic life span in about 10 years. Among these are Alpac, Evergreen Heights and Gildo Rey elementary schools, Cascade Middle School and the district’s administration building.