The Belton ISD Board of Trustees has spent nearly four years studying the facilities needs created by the district's fast growth. After this month's meeting, school board members are close to calling for a bond election to fund the construction of a new elementary school and a new high school.
Over the past decade, Belton ISD grew by 3,151 students. In the next ten years, the district is projected to add another 3,617 students bringing its total enrollment to more than 14,700 students by the fall of 2026. As a result of this growth, elementary and middle schools are projected to be at or near their capacity in 2019 and high schools in 2021.
Last spring, trustees adopted the outline of a long-range facilities plan to address the need for additional capacity. Dubbed the Roadmap to BISD 2025, it calls for building an elementary school to open in 2019 and a high school to open in 2020. It also calls for repurposing Bhs9, formerly Belton Middle School, to serve as the district's fourth middle school beginning in 2020. Since adopting the roadmap, trustees and administrators have focused on filling in the details.
Monday night, the board voted to locate the proposed elementary school near the intersection of Poison Oak Road and Carriage House Drive in the city of Temple. The cost of the proposed elementary school is estimated at $21.3 million, a figure which includes the cost of construction as well as furniture, fixtures, technology and other equipment. It will have space for about 800 students.
School board members have planned to build the proposed high school on land adjacent to High Point Elementary School and near the intersection of FM 317 and FM 2483 in Temple. Monday night, they authorized the district's architects to begin designing a campus for the site with space for up to 2,500 students. The estimated cost to both build and outfit the high school is $125.6 million.
Trustees also discussed two smaller projects: adding music classrooms and a gym at Lakewood Elementary School and renovating the Wall Street Auditorium in downtown Belton. Lakewood is the largest elementary school in the district without a standard gymnasium. The Wall Street Auditorium is used by schools and community groups for performances, but district officials report that it would better serve them with modern systems and updated equipment. Those projects are estimated to cost $1.7 million and $1.1 million respectively.
The school board plans to consider a bond package consisting of those four projects at a special meeting on Feb. 6. Based on current estimates, the total cost of the package would be $149.7 million.
At Monday's meeting, the board also reviewed how issuing bonds to fund these projects would affect the district's tax rates. Based on historical trends, the district's financial advisor projected that issuing $150 million in bonds would increase property taxes 18.71 cents per $100 of valuation.
