News

Sanger ISD Design Charette

 

The Huckabee team headed to Sanger ISD on August 4 to hold a design charette for the new Sanger Elementary School.

In an effort to better define the facility that will be put before voters in a November bond referendum, the District’s elementary school teachers and administrators were asked to take part in the charette, bringing ideas and challenges to the Huckabee team to incorporate into the design.

“This is their building- they’ll be living and working in the facility for the next 50 years,” said Gary Rademacher, project architect for SISD. “This is an important process to go through. We want this to be a facility that the community will be proud of. Most importantly, we want to ensure that this is a place that will inspire students as well as teachers.”

A bond steering committee made up of Sanger community members and teachers was formed several months ago to study examples of elementary schools in the State. The committee reached a consensus on the parameters for the new school. As per the committee, the new elementary school will become a prototype for the District’s future elementary schools. Prototypes are very economical because they can be used multiple times to decrease the impact of design fees in the future. Also, as plans are refined, the educational functionality and constructability of future prototypes improve.

The school, housing Early Childhood – Grade 5, will be approximately 85,000 sf, two stories and solid masonry with a low-slope roof. A full-size competition gymnasium will also be constructed and will provide additional space for Sanger High School which is adjacent to the new elementary school site. The school will have an initial student capacity of 700, with the core spaces of the library and cafetorium designed for 750, allowing the addition of classrooms in the future if needed.

Other issues the bond steering committee sought to address were moving the youngest children out of Tenderfoot, the District’s Pre-K and Kindergarten facility, removing the two portable buildings that were brought on the campus last year, and converting Indian Creek into a Sixth Grade Center.

Sanger ISD called a bond election for $12.9 Million on November 7, 2006. Huckabee was hired in November 2005 to study the District’s needs and design future facilities.