Dallas board approves plan to rebuild and renovate tornado-damaged schools

The Dallas school board has approved nearly $132 million in construction projects for two campuses severely damaged in October by tornadoes,

The Dallas Morning News reports that just over $82 million of that total will go to renovating Thomas Jefferson High School; the remaining $49.8 million will create a new pre-K through 8th grade campus on the site of Cary Middle School, totaled by the storms

Despite requests from Thomas Jefferson alumni to do something more elaborate at the 64-year-old campus, board members decided to  renovate -- and not completely rebuild -- the high school.

[Related: 3 Dallas schools closed indefinitely after tornado]

Earlier this month, district officials pressed trustees to make a quick choice, hoping to reopen the schools by the start of the 2022-23 school year.

District administrators proposed a compromise option last week, attempting to find a middle ground between the $82 million renovation and a completely new high school, which was projected to cost the district $147.3 million.

The initial renovation option aimed to preserve a majority of the existing structures, demolishing and rebuilding 134,000 square feet of the property too heavily damaged to be salvaged: the cafeteria and kitchen, weight room and dance studio, the culinary arts and ROTC areas.

At $124.6 million, the compromise plan would have demolished far more of the aging school, renovating only an 34,000-square foot academic wing on the east side of the high school that was built in 2004.

The majority of board members, however, either expressed their satisfaction with the earlier plan of more extensive renovations, or their dissatisfaction with the administration’s last-minute pivot to a more expensive option.

The board voted 6-3 for the $82.1 million plan.