AN ARCHITECT’S RENDERING shows the front of the proposed new Wortham high school. Voters are being asked to approve a $7 million bond issue for construction. Construction will begin on a new high school in Wortham this fall if a $7 million bond issue is passed by voters in May.

Wortham Independent School District superintendent Albert Armer says the district hopes to be awarded a Qualified School Construction Bond guarantee for $5 million of the estimated $7 million total cost, helping to reduce the cost to the area taxpayers.

The remaining $2 million will be an additional issue sold at market value.

"The Wortham community is and always has been very supportive of the schools and I believe this will be an opportunity for them to demonstrate that support," Armer says. "So far I have heard only positive comments from the folks I have talked to. They understand how hard the board of trustees has worked to be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollar and how vital the school is."

A public meeting is set Monday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the Wortham school auditorium to present facts and to answer questions.

Wortham board of trustees has set three major goals to be accomplished with the bond funds. First, build a new high school. Second, improvements at the football field including new lights, improved drainage and additional parking. Finally, a competition track if funding allows and a suitable location can be found.

Biggest reason for the new construction, Armer says, is the crowded conditions currently in place at Wortham schools. Enrollment at WISD has grown about 45 percent since the 1998-99 school year. Some of the growth is due, Armer says, to the addition of the pre-kindergarten program which was started in 2005-06 and has grown to house 30 students.

The school has also seen an increase in transfer students, which has grown from 3.5 percent in 2002 to the current seven percent, and an increase in students moving in the district.

"With the larger number of students in our system and so many requirements for interventions and special programs, our existing facilities are just not adequate," Armer says.

Two years ago, the district commissioned the Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) to conduct a facilities study, he points out. They advised the district to build a new high school at that time, but Wortham school trustees decided against the new construction.

Last year, the district decided to increase the dining capacity of the cafeteria and add some classroom space, which they did by providing a portable classroom building to house the art program, which moved to accommodate the dining room expansion, and the high school/middle school Read Right program, which was sharing a portable building with the elementary school.

The cafeteria renovation was completed in August of 2009 before school started. The classroom addition, attached to the cafeteria, has two large classrooms and a state-of-the-art science lab. The new classrooms will house the fifth grade, which is now in a portable.

The existing high school was built in 1986 and the middle school wing was added in 1997. Moving the high school into a new facility will allow the middle school to spread out and give them access to a science lab, something they don't have now.

The middle school currently uses only six academic classrooms and as the larger classes move up from the elementary they will need more space, Armer says. Additional classrooms made available when the high school moves will be occupied by the upper elementary grades and special programs. Armer believes that the new construction will get all of the students out of the six temporary classrooms now located in portable buildings.

"The proposed new high school is still in the design stage but we anticipate that it will be somewhere between 33,000 and 37,000 square feet," the superintendent says. "The planned site sits directly across 5th street from the existing building and the two buildings will face each other."

Designing the new facility is RBDR Architects of Waco. Previous projects of the firm include the Cook Center at Navarro College, Robinson high school, and projects at Baylor University, McLennan Community College, Texas State Technical College and the University of Mary Hardin- Baylor.

Projected completion date is late fall of the 2011- 2012 school term. Wortham school district has 507 students and 83 full time faculty and staff.