New high school among committee recommendations
Published 1:18 pm Wednesday, February 13, 2019
By Chris Moore
NEDERLAND — The Citizens Advisory Committee recommended a new high school in the list of projects it presented to the Nederland Independent School District board of trustees Tuesday.
The board elected to postpone a vote until Wednesday on what would go on a potential bond election in may.
The CAC recommended:
- New high school ($82.7 million)
- Elementary school new learning areas and improvements ($49.1 million)
- Middle school improvements ($11.1 million)
- Technology incentives ($4.8 million)
- Safety and security ($3.4 million)
- Stadium upgrades ($4.5 million)
The total amount of the projects comes out to $155.6 million.
While the board voted to postpone the final vote, a majority of the board members said they were ready to vote in favor of the recommendation by the committee.
CAC member Jathen Garrett presented the recommendations to the board.
“I feel like [the board] has a big decision to make,” he said. “They have support from the community based on the survey. I feel like our community understands we need new facilities — we need to move forward. The time is right. We had a setback in 2008. There were some issues with the economy and the housing crash. The timing was not good.”
Garrett said he knows there will be those that oppose the bond.
“I feel like we can get a majority of the people to support it,” he said. “It is a sacrifice for our taxpayers. It’s been almost 50 years since we built a new facility. We are building for tomorrow. We are trying to build tomorrow’s leaders.”
The board will vote on the recommendation in the Central Middle School auditorium at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
