KYLE — Hays CISD’s fourth comprehensive high school is on the horizon, as the board of trustees discussed design development at the April 14 meeting.
According to chief operations officer Max Cleaver, the board was presented with schematic designs in October 2024. Since then, the cost has lowered approximately $2 million, he said.
“If everything goes well, we’ll be back again in October for [construction documents] and then, we would be going for a [guaranteed maximum price] — believe it or not — as early as December ’25 or January ’26 to break ground in April. So, this time next year, we’d be building that high school,” said Cleaver.
Jason Andrus, principal architect at Huckabee Architects, explained that, currently, the site plans haven’t changed much, as the overall layout is the same, but staff has worked on refining it, such as working on softball and baseball field layouts, adding bathrooms and more.
Inside the main building and near the concession stands for baseball and softball, and other sports, there is ample storage. There has also been research done regarding the stadium and hosting other campuses, including providing parking spaces for 18-wheelers to park and unload, without having to move after, outlining where visitors would park and more.
One of the bigger changes includes the Career & Technical Education spaces. The labs were previously at a 24-student capacity, but will now sit at the new district standard of 28 students. Additionally, mock hospital rooms and triage spaces have been added, said Andrus.
“I know that we have been phasing out computer labs, so I was really surprised to see three computer labs here,” said trustee Esperanza Orosco. “So, is that really necessary? Are we bringing computer labs back?”
There will be a total of three labs, each with 30 desktops. The argument by staff was that there are some programs that will be easier on desktops since they are wired, giving them better bandwidth. This is why, Andrus said, that they moved the computer labs over to the CTE wing because they want to work on skills, such as graphic design.
Trustee Vanessa Petrea stated that she hoped that these labs would be used for testing, as the librarians are “over it.”
“There’s nothing that keeps these rooms from being used for testing other than scheduling,” said Andrus.
Other information shared in the update is that each classroom will be 800 feet and sit 35 students.
“I know something is not going to be right. There are always things that we think, ‘Ah. Why didn’t we do this’ and such later, but Johnson [High School] is so fresh, I feel like we do have lessons learned. So, I appreciate you guys talking to the right stakeholders and thinking through all the worst case scenarios,” said Petrea.
One of these lessons learned, said Andrus, is that every staircase at this campus will be 11-feet wide, as opposed to varying staircases through, as is the case at Lehman and Johnson high schools.
“If you can just keep us updated on any significant rise in costs, as far as these construction projects go,” said trustee Johnny Flores.
No action was taken, as the item was a workshop for the trustees to provide further inquiries, if needed.
The Hays CISD Board of Trustees will next meet April 24.
