Auburn High School, Terminal Park Elementary and Olympic Middle School are all past the half-century mark.

District officials say repairing the aging elementary and middle schools would cost more than replacing them, and the high school is closing in on that distinction.

Now they say the time has come to see to ensure all students in the distant get the same chance at education, regardless of where they are being taught.

“We spent 10 years building new schools to address growth, now we need to go back basically to bring our facilities that are 50 to 60 years old up to standards,” said Kip Herren, Auburn School District superintendent, on a recent walkthrough of the high school.

On Tuesday, voters will be asked to support Proposition 1, a $239 million bond that would pay for the replacement of the three schools over the next 10 years and fund improvements at other aging facilities.

Voters also will be asked to support Proposition 2, titled “Auburn School District School District Capital Improvements Levy,” which would authorize the district to levy an additional tax. The measure would provide for a total of $46.4 million for the district’s capital projects fund for facilities improvements and equipment for six years.

The levy would be collected in the school years from 2010-2011 through 2015 to 2016, funding improvements at 18 schools and six support facilities. Each year of the levy would replace the previous year’s amount.

The capital improvement levy requires a 50-percent-majority-plus-one to pass, but the bond requires a 60-percent supermajority.

This will be an all-mail bond and levy election. Ballots must be postmarked by midnight Tuesday.

The new, 1,800-student Auburn High School would be built on East Main Street in the area where the old high school — later the Annex — formerly stood. The 59-year-old high school, built in haste after the 1949 earthquake, would be razed. The Performing Arts Center and the automotive Technology Building, however, would remain.

Olympic Middle School would be replaced at its present location with an 800-student building. Construction would start in 2012 and wrap up by 2014.

Terminal Park Elementary would be replaced where it stands with a 550-student school. Construction would begin in 2011 and the building would open in the fall of 2012.

By building on site, Herren said, the district will save money it would otherwise have to expend on land acquisition.

According to district figures, the combined school tax rate with the bond is projected to be $5.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value, calculated as follows: the $5.36 actual 2006 school tax rate, minus $1.59 in retiring bonds and levies plus $1.28 in new bonds and levies and existing school taxes.

“We’re not raising taxes over the long haul because we’re paying off debts,” Herren said. “We’re paying off the construction bonds on Rainier Middle School, Hazelwood, and we’re close to paying off Auburn Riverside. As we retire debts, that creates capacity that allows us to keep the rate level.”

Given the state of the economy, Herren knows it is an awkward time to put such an issue before voters.

But oddly enough, he said, now may be the best time to do it.

“The bid market for building will come in at a great value. It will cost more in the future than it will now. And we think it has economic value,” Herren said. “The city says that for every dollar of construction, 50 cents goes into the local community. The bond rates are at a low level, which means that the debt service will be low. We always try and keep the tax rate level in a slight decreasing mode, and that’s what our bond is about initiating, a 10-year plan developed by citizens, recommended by citizens to sort of arc our next 10 years of bringing all our schools up to parity.”

Since the mid-1980s, the school district has engaged in a capital facilities program to meet the needs of a growing student population and to modernize facilities to ensure that kids at every building get the same opportunities.

The 2004-05 Citizens Ad Hoc Committee recommended the district complete a detailed, thorough review of all facilities and assess them against program and facility component standards. The district’s Steering Committee for the Facilities Master Plan reviewed this data, including cost estimates, in September and October of 2008. Committee members then decided which of the more than 2,700 items should be recommended to the school board for consideration for future bonds and capital levies.

Among the facility improvement recommendations are the following:

• Provide improvements to facilities that are needed 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 the newer schools, Arthur Jacobsen Elementary, Lakeland Hills Elementary and Auburn Mountainview.

• 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, including Alpac, Evergreen Heights and Gildo Rey elementary schools, Cascade Middle School, and the district’s administration building.

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ELECTION AT A GLANCE

School Improvement Bond

• 36 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value over the 2009 projected school tax rate.

• The combined tax rate is projected to be $5.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value

Capital improvements levy

If authorized by voters, property taxes would be collected at a rate estimated at:

• $1.37 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2010

• $1.27 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2011

• $0.61 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2012

• $0.55 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2013

• $0.33 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2014

• $0.20 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2015