portraits

    »     AMARILLO ISD

13

For Amarillo ISD School Board President Jim Austin, it was a 

cluster of experiences at AISD schools which not only made him 
cringe, but solidifi ed what he already knew. Many buildings were 
in disrepair and the District’s patchwork approach to repairs that 
had worked for so long wasn’t working any longer.

 “In 2016, as we were beginning to develop a thought about a 

renovation of our schools, I went to an event at Amarillo High. 
I noticed not only was the auditorium dated, but the stage was 
dirty, the curtains torn and it just had a disheveled, unfi nished 
look,” Jim recalls. “Then I went to the restroom and there were 
fi ve urinals on the wall with no partitions. Of four sinks, one 
didn’t work and three had buckets underneath that were full of 
water that had leaked out.”

The eye-opening encounters continued to plague Jim, who 

is in schools monthly as part of his board duties. During a visit 
to Lamar Elementary, the combination of rain and sewer issues 
left the playground completely submerged in water. A trip to 
Olsen Park Elementary revealed structural issues with the school. 
“Doors don’t close. Refrigerators are obviously cantered over 
to one side or another. If you sit in a chair, you begin to roll 
downhill,” he recounts. “I thought surely the school district can 
do better than this.”

The Impossible Becomes Possible

Nearly 80 percent of AISD schools are more than 50 years old. 

Over the years, the District has maintained upkeep by spending 
and committing more than $57 million from the general fund 
for projects. “We’re lucky we’ve worked on it as we’ve gone along 
all these years. Our problems aren’t so huge that we just can’t do 
anything about them,” says Jim.

Individually, as Jim noted, the problems weren’t that huge. But 

the combined tally of needs was. In December 2016, the Board 
directed staff to conduct a thorough assessment of needs at all 
of AISD’s 55 aging schools. The result was a $330 million list 
of repairs, replacement, renovations and additions. “It literally 
seemed like it was impossible. But looking at what I had seen of 
our schools, it was clearly something our District had to take on.”

Jim and the rest of the Board set to work crunching numbers, 

prioritizing projects and creating a $100 million bond package 
they could confi dently present to taxpayers. In November, the 

bond passed. Fifty-fi ve percent of voters agreed to put their trust 
and tax dollars into four main areas: safety & security, classroom 
additions, facility updates and modernized infrastructure. 

Blueprint For Progress

Carrying out the expectations entrusted to AISD by voters 

now lies largely in the hands of AISD’s Chief Operations Offi cer 
Brent Hoover, who, along with a Board bond committee, will 
oversee the process. There’s a chart, graph or blueprint in Brent’s 
binder for every phase and project. The fi rst order of business 
was to hire a bond construction director and a project manager, 
whose salaries are included in the bond budget, to make sure the 
specifi cations and scope of projects are completed on time, on 
budget and per specifi cation.  

Four architect fi rms were hired in January to serve as project 

architects, each designing a portion of the total bond package. 
Construction is expected to begin in the fall at Fannin Middle 
School with 12 new classrooms, remodeled bathrooms, a secured 
entrance and modernization of much of the campus. The drainage 
issue at Lamar Elementary is next in line. Projects are prioritized 
by need and complexity. The Fannin revamp, for example, takes 
into account expected growth in southeast Amarillo and the need 
to have those new classrooms sooner, rather than later. 

Every project funded by the bond is expected to be completed 

by 2021. “The timeline is aggressive, but achievable,” says Brent, 
who points out projects are also strategically staggered within that 
timeline.  “That is done to make sure the Amarillo workforce can 
accommodate $100 million worth of construction. We stagger the 
start times so we don’t overload contractors and subcontractors 
with too much work at one time.” 

For Jim Austin and the AISD School Board, the bond is a 

blueprint for progress. He looks forward to changes that will 
give students and the community school facilities that match the 
quality of education AISD delivers.

“People have a tendency to respond to a crisis and in our view, 

we have a crisis. Thanks to the community, we’re going to be able 
to deal with issues that we couldn’t have fi xed any other way,” says 
Jim. “I’m so very grateful to our community for their patience 
and for allowing us to move forward and make all our schools 
great places to work, teach and learn.” 

RE-BUILDING AISD

District’s $100 Million Voter-Approved School Bond Goes to Work

“I’m so very grateful to our community for their patience and for allowing us to move 
forward and make all our schools great places to work, teach and learn.”

—AISD School Board President Jim Austin