DALLAS MORNING NEWS
A facilities report outlining a new Dallas school bond program recommends closing eight schools that the district recently spent $28 million renovating.
All nine schools would be closed only if the board proposes, and voters approve, a $2.65 billion construction package – the largest and most expensive option under consideration. However, even under the least expensive option – a $1.28 billion package – at least three recently renovated schools, including Adamson High, would be closed and replaced by new ones.
School officials said the renovations completed at the schools as part of a bond program approved in 2002 were minimal upgrades needed just to keep the schools functional. Most of the $28 million paid for roof repairs, heating and air conditioning upgrades and changes to make the buildings more accessible to the disabled, officials said.
Phil Jimerson, the district's director of construction services, said $28 million isn't too steep a price for an additional 10 years of use out of those nine schools.
"These were decisions made in 2001, and we didn't have the benefit of hindsight – knowing we would have the opportunity to build new schools today," Mr. Jimerson said. "We needed [to spend the $28 million] just to keep the schools safe, to keep the air conditioning working, the roofs from leaking."
Craig Reynolds, chairman of the advisory task force that prepared Thursday's report, said it's unlikely that district trustees would push ahead with the full package of $2.65 billion.
"We don't anticipate that happening," said Mr. Reynolds, an architect with the firm of Brown, Reynolds and Watford.
For example, if trustees ask voters to approve a bond package worth $1.28 billion, six of nine recently renovated schools would remain in use. And, Mr. Jimerson said, the other three buildings could be used for administrative offices or for after-school or summer programs.
Adamson High School, one of the district's oldest buildings, would be replaced under every scenario. The school received a $9 million renovation in 2006 that included 16 new classrooms, teacher offices, an administrative office suite, bathrooms, band and orchestra rooms and a music library.
The report recommends that Adamson be replaced with a new, 175,000-square-foot high school.
The facility report given to trustees Thursday calls for building up to 14 new schools. At least half would be in the district's southeastern quadrant, which includes Pleasant Grove, Wilmer-Hutchins and Seagoville. District officials expect enrollment growth there to be substantial over the next 10 years.
"This district faces enormous shifts in population, increases in the Southern portion of the District and declines in the Northern sectors," states a demographic study, prepared by Population and Survey Analysts.
But the trustees' decision next month about whether to go forward with a bond issue isn't so much about getting ahead of growth as it is about solving old problems, Mr. Reynolds said.
Even after adding more than 1,500 new classrooms in the 2002 bond package, DISD still has more than 1,000 portable classrooms in use. About half of the district's schools are more than 50 years old.
Although the last bond project totaled $1.37 billion, about $900 million is still needed for repairs. And although enrollment is falling – about 4,000 students have left DISD since 2002 – the open seats aren't where the district needs them.
"We'd have to bus children many, many miles, and that's not something we want to do," Mr. Reynolds said.
And then there are developments in some special districts that are heavily influencing the kinds of homes being built in certain sections of the city.
These tax increment financing districts, or TIFs, are used to pay for improvements and attract private development. There are at least 10 TIF districts within DISD boundaries, many of them in the northern parts of the district and close to downtown. Those are replacing low-income apartments with condos and townhouses, which typically do not attract families with children.
In other words, enrollments in and around TIF districts aren't likely to grow, and they could even fall. Yet in southern and eastern DISD, as many as 27,000 new homes could be built over the next 10 years.
The district has already been surprised by TIFs once. It spent more than $50 million building Conrad High School north of Northwest Highway on Fair Oaks Drive. But TIF-driven developments resulted in the demolition of apartments in the area. A year and a half after opening, Conrad is half empty.
"The importance of TIF Districts cannot be overemphasized," the demographic study states. "The composition of the student population will change due to the implementation of changing land uses encouraged by TIFs."