Northside ISD wants to build six new schools

Northside Independent School District officials say they hope to build five new elementary schools and a new high school to handle its rapidly swelling student population.

District officials made the announcement at the first meeting of its citizens' bond committee at the Northside Activity Center late Thursday, laying groundwork to ask voters to approve a bond package in 2014.

No final amount has been settled on, but officials hope to hash that out with the community in a series of meetings ending Dec. 12.

This year, Northside, the city's largest school district and fourth-largest in Texas, passed the 100,000 enrollment milestone. In the past decade, its population has grown an average of 3,090 students per year.

District officials have asked for a bond every three years during that decade, but lower construction costs related to the 2008 recession allowed them to wait an extra year — but the time has come, they said.

Northside's residential population grew at 4.7 percent a year from 2006 to 2010, twice the rate of Bexar County, which has grown at 2.3 percent, district data show.

“People here are making babies,” said Debbie McNierney, Northside's director of resource planning. “We still have another 20 years of growth and want to be prepared for that.”

Most of the new schools will be in the expanding neighborhoods in the southwestern portion of Northside ISD, near its boundary with Medina Valley ISD.

A total of 407 classrooms would be added. No new middle schools are planned, but additions are slated for Luna Middle School and Allen Elementary.

One of the new elementary schools, tentatively labeled “Village at WestPoint(East),” will be funded with $50 million left over from the 2010 bond. The district also plans to build a new districtwide gym from that money as well.

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