Bond package sets stage for new school

Dickinson ISD will build its second junior high campus on east side of the district

After voter approval of a $70 million bond package, Dickinson ISD is moving forward to build a second junior high school that may open as soon as August 2018.

Passage of the bond on May 7 was welcome news for the district, which is navigating its rapid growth. District officials believe the current junior high, McAdams, will have 300 more students than its enrollment capacity of 1,400 by the time the planned school opens. McAdams’ enrollment is at 1,550.

Dickinson ISD has grown by 4,000 students in the last 10 years. Its enrollment is about 10,900.

The district’s tax rate of $1.54 per $100 valuation will not increase because of the bond referendum, said Tammy Dowdy, the district’s director of communications.

The planned school, which like McAdams will serve grades 7 and 8, will be a twostory building with seventh grade on one floor and eighth grade on the other. It will feature a courtyard in the center and have roughly the same enrollment capacity as the current school. The entirety of the $70 million is dedicated to the new junior high.

“They’re planning the new

junior high school now and construction should start later this year,” Dowdy said.

“We’re growing so fast we’re at bonding capacity,” she said. “We’re moving toward having smaller bonds more often, not just one for $150 million that addresses a lot of different things.”

Bonding capacity is when the Texas Education Agency caps how much a district can request in a bond referendum to prevent the district from incurring too much debt.

That threshold is determined by the total valuation of the district.

Task force determined biggest district need

The district’s Facility Task Force — made up of nearly 50 community members, parents and district administrators — determined that the most pressing need was additional space for seventhand eighth-grade students.

The new junior high school will be on districtowned property on Strom Road.

By the time the new school is built, Dickinson ISD will need to pass another bond referendum to accommodate growth, according to Jim Rubach, the district’s executive director of facility planning and construction.

The district won’t use portable classrooms but may make do with roving teachers to handle crowding, he said.

Subdivision forecast to boost enrollment

One factor in enrollment growth projections is the Lago Mar subdivision, which is under construction off Interstate 45 near the Tanger Outlet Mall in Texas City. The first of its homes were completed this school year.

Over the next few years, the community — expected to feature 4,000 single-family homes and 750 multifamily units — could increase Dickinson ISD’s enrollment by several thousand students, according to district projections.

Dowdy said the new school will be on the east side of the district, with McAdams on the west side. She expects rezoning in spring 2018 to split the district, creating feeder patterns for the two junior highs.

“Our high school population will probably be the biggest concern in our next bond,” Rubach said, pointing to the district’s only high school, which had an enrollment capacity of 2,400 but now has over 2,800 students.

Dickinson ISD taxpayers have approved nearly $300 million through four bond referendums over 16 years.

The most recent, a $56 million bond in 2014, is funding Louis G. Lobit Elementary School and Elva C. Lobit Middle School which open this August.