Local Weather Forecast
Today: Current:74	Sunday: 96/74	Monday: 94/73
Complete Forecast for  Aug 30 2008

TOP JOBS

By BETTY WATERS
Staff Writer

HENDERSON — Builders are working on a construction project of the largest magnitude in Henderson Independent School District’s history. Meanwhile, an assessment of other facility needs is being made.

Steel girders erected on huge slabs of concrete signal that new educational facilities are beginning to take shape on a 30-acre tract on U.S. 259 South.

The approximately 180,000-square-foot complex will consist of a prekindergarten and kindergarten school, a first- through third-grade elementary school and a shared commons building housing gymnasiums, cafeteria, music rooms, etceteras.

The district also is constructing a 5,000-square-foot athletic facility at the middle school because of having added seventh-grade athletics.

And a facilities study is under way to determine needs of remaining schools and how best to use buildings no longer needed once the new schools begin operating.

The study began in May, conducted with assistance of the Tyler architectural firm of Fitzpatrick-Butler, and is expected to be finished by the end of summer. The school board and superintendent will review the report and make decisions on what steps might be taken next, according to officials.

“We want to make sure we maintain our other campuses and they are up to standard and have what we need to provide a quality education for out students,” said Stacey Sullivan, director of curriculum and communications.

The new schools, scheduled to open in August 2009, are funded with a $22 million bond issue — the largest bond proposal ever attempted in Henderson ISD. “We had incredible support for the bond issue,” Ms. Sullivan said, pointing out 82 percent of voters approved the proposition.

Opening of the new schools in August 2009 will be “thrilling,” she said, because it will be the first time in 30 years that Henderson has a new campus.” The last new building was a high school constructed in the late 1970s.

Principals and the curriculum director have been working with the builder, Berry & Clay Construction Co. of Rusk, and the architect to design the facilities to meet instructional needs and equip them with the latest technology. “We will have a design that is child-friendly, inviting to parents as well and we feel like it’s going to be a quality program,” Ms. Sullivan said.

Approximately 40 percent of the district’s pupils will be housed in the complex being constructed on 30 acres donated by the Wylie family, longtime residents of Henderson/Rusk County, in cooperation with the city of Henderson. They will be relocated from four current schools — a prekindergarten and kindergarten school on Sand Street, the first-grade Central Elementary on Mary Street, the second-grade Montgomery Elementary on Collins Street and the third-grade Chamberlain Elementary on Crosby Street.

“We now are trying to decide what will be done with the current kindergarten building and the current first-grade campus. They will not be used by the school district because those buildings are beyond our ability to maintain them because of their age,” Ms. Sullivan said.

The district is looking at various options and trying to determine how best to use the Montgomery and Chamberlain campuses so they will benefit not only the schools, but also the community, according to officials.

One of the buildings might be utilized as a Henderson center for Kilgore College, Ms. Sullivan said, while the district probably would consider how the community could use the kindergarten building due to its history as a former African- American high school.

Future facility projects likely will be financed with benefits that Henderson ISD reaps from increased production in surrounding East Texas oil and gas fields, rather than with another bond issue, according to the communications director.

“We know we are looking at some needs at the high school because of additional state requirements for science and math,” Ms. Sullivan said. “We have very good science labs at this point, but we have more students taking science than we’ve had in the past, so we want to make sure we have the space for those labs,”

The facilities assessment also is determining needs at the middle school, the intermediate school and the administration building, which was built in the 1930s and housed a variety of grades through the years before being put into use for the district’s administrative offices. “It’s a beautiful building with the traditional school style of the 1930s, but maintenance on a building like this is very costly, so we are considering options for it,” Ms. Sullivan said.