AUSTIN, Texas — Murchison Middle School students joined Austin School District administrators to break ground on Tuesday.
The teens helped turn over dirt on phase one of a renovation project.
"We are in the process of demolition or actively constructing," said Mathias Segura, the operations officer for the Austin Independent School District.
Murchison Middle School is just one project for AISD, expected to finish August of next year.
Southwest and Blazier Relief Elementary are two more.
Govalle, Menchaca and T. A. Brown Elementary are scheduled to finish by January of 2020.
"What we have to do is build them in phases and because of their size, we take them off in chunks so Murchison is going through phase one of modernization which includes a 6th-grade academic wing as well as enclosing a large portion of campus to increase security," said Segura.
Work on all of these campuses is a result of a nearly billion-dollar bond which was approved by voters in 2017.
At the same time, the district is trying to make up a 65-million dollar budget gap, including closing and consolidating schools.
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An effort that has proved a little frustrating for some parents, like Paul Ritter, because of what it could ultimately mean.
"Well you know we have a community school here," said Ritter. "Obviously everyone picks where they live for the schools. So obviously changing where my kids go to school will obviously have an impact. It's not something we really want to see happen."
Ritter is a father of two.
One attends Doss Elementary, which is also under construction.
He said the district could do a better job of delivering a clearer message, especially when discussing consolidation.
"I think the messaging has been very poor. It hasn't been very clear as to what the meaning of the maps or why they put maps out," said Ritter.
"I think one of the things that can be confusing is that there are a lot of things going occurring at the same time," said Segura. "What we want to do is make sure we care communicating in a clear way as possible."
With so many projects going on at the same time, Segura said they are making sure to look at all the projects as a whole, and not just in isolation.
If you're wondering, "why are we building *new* schools with bond money, when we're closing others to address this big budget deficit?"
Well, that's part of how bonds work.
They're approved for capital improvement projects and the district can't use that money for anything else.
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