The Farmersville Independent School District Board of Trustees might soon be getting a report on plans to start spending the $65 million that FISD voters approved in a bond issue election in May 2021.
The report might come at the board’s next regular meeting from Superintendent Micheal French, who has been waiting on bids to come in from contractors who intend to add on and improve all the school district’s campuses.
French had said after the bond issue won overwhelming voter approval (78%) in May that he would be ready to present bids to the board of trustees by January or February. Since then, the school district has faced delays in getting the bids, French said. “The delay was simply to allow more time to get more contractors to submit bids. It’s been very difficult to get all trades to bid because of labor shortages and work is plentiful,” he said in an apparent reference to the COVID-19 pandemic and the toll it has taken on staffing issues.
The main piece of the bond issue is to double the high school capacity to 1,200 students, along with adding a band hall, new cafeteria, a second gymnasium, a storm shelter and a new vocational barn at Farmersville High School. That project will take up the bulk of the money allotted by the bond issue. FISD also plans to move sixth-grade students from the junior high school to the intermediate school, which he said would increase junior high capacity by 33 percent. Also planned are additional playground space and interior updates at the intermediate school, improvements to vocational programs at the junior high school.
The district intends to keep Farmersville High School, as well as the junior high and intermediate school campuses, open and fully operational while construction crews add classrooms and assorted other support activities.
Additional classrooms and gymnasium upgrades for Tatum has already begun and FISD officials have indicated the elementary school will be the first campus completed.
The school board is set to meet Monday, April 25 in the high school cafeteria, beginning at 6 p.m.
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