The Whitney ISD Board of Trustees is moving forward with bond planning based on the results of the district’s facility needs assessment. Superintendent Todd Southard, along with WRA Architects, presented the study to the board Monday night, focusing mainly on the intermediate school and elementary school.
Since February, Southard said that he has met with over 100 community members—parents, business owners and city leaders—getting input from them. “I wanted to know their thoughts about going out for a bond, and so I laid out the plan and why the move was needed,” he said. “The response was overwhelmingly positive. They saw the need and liked the fact that we are trying to truly address needs and not wants. They also liked that the plan focuses heavily on the classroom.”
One of the key elements to the plan is building a new pre-kindergarten through fifth grade campus, combining both the intermediate school and elementary school into one campus. The intermediate, which was first built in 1955, has been added on to and remodeled a number of times over its 70-plus year history, the last being over 30 years ago, in 1994. The elementary school was built in 1986.
When Southard first started looking at the intermediate school, he considered remodeling the campus. However, after doing research and speaking with construction companies to compare the costs of renovation versus new construction, he said that he felt those funds would be better utilized towards a new campus.
“The intermediate school is in bad shape and needs a lot of work,” he said. “It’s going to cost millions to fix it up to where it needs to be. We’d have to pass a bond just to remodel it. Financially, it makes no sense to put any money into it, and, if we did, we’d still have a 70-year-old building.”
He added, “In addition, the current elementary school is 40 years old and has issues as well, and we know that as it ages, it’s only going to have more and more problems. Essentially, by combining the two campuses, we’re able to solve two issues with one move.”
Southard said that combining the two campuses has significant financial benefits as well.
“A district our size should be a three-campus district. Having four campuses is a budget killer. By going down to three campuses, we’ll save over $500,000 a year in personnel costs alone, with a majority of those savings happening because of a reduction in office staff and administration. And, while I can’t put an exact figure on it, I would think there would be savings as well with regards to maintenance and upkeep.”
This fall the district will form a bond committee. This committee, comprised of parents, community members and district employees, will review the facility assessment and consider other needs.
“We’re going to have to look hard at the HVAC system at the high school,” the superintendent said. “It has really given us a lot of problems, and it has for years. It’s an old geo-thermal system. It’s expensive to maintain and to have it worked on. During the spring a pump went out, and that’s why that one hallway was down for so long. We had to special order the pump for it, and it was $35,000.”
Southard also said that he expects the committee to consider building an ag barn. “We’re a 3A district in rural Texas, but we don’t have an ag barn. I think if we had one here in town, close by, we’d have our numbers explode in that program. The Grace family has been so good to us for so many years, and we’re very appreciative of their generosity, but we feel it’s time to get our own place.”
The bond committee will consider all the needs of the district and then make the recommendation to either move or not move forward with the bond.
If the committee determines that it wants to move forward, the Board of Trustees would have the final approval of the bond package.
Southard emphasized that this is not a fast process. “What I want to ask of everyone is to be patient with us. I know a lot of people are going to have questions, but we don’t have answers yet. This is a long process that takes time, and nobody should jump to conclusions about any of it. Allow the process to work, please. As soon as decisions are made, we will inform the public.”
Southard said that the final decision won’t be made until either late this fall or early spring.
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