(Seguin) — The Seguin ISD Board of Trustees is one step closer to breathing life back into the Saegert campus. Trustees Tuesday night approved the dollars necessary to help transition the former middle school campus into the district’s newest school building.
Sean Hoffmann, the executive director of communications for the Seguin ISD, says as reported earlier, the district is looking to house three of its existing programs under the Saegert umbrella.
“Earlier this month, our trustees met in a workshop setting and were given information on the district’s idea to move forward and essentially revitalize the Saegert school by putting in the alternative school — essentially moving Burges to Saegert and also moving the MBLC (Mercer-Blumberg Learning Center)school to Saegert as well as part of our special ed program to Saegert as well. We feel that that campus is beautiful. It’s well built. It needs some TLC inside and in approving this measure tonight, the trustees have allowed us to go in and make those improvements inside Saegert to get it up and running this fall,” said Hoffmann.
Trustees approved just over $230,00 for the transition. The money was secured from the district’s general operating budget fund balance and was the amount leftover after an additional $219,000 was funded out of the remaining Qualified Zone Academy Bonds or QZAB account.
Hoffmann says district officials believe it’s a small price to pay for better and improved facilities for these very deserving programs.
“We feel that this will help bring achievement and success to these programs. As most folks know, the MBLC has been a very successful program, a very popular program over the years with the district. Their current facility right now doesn’t really lend itself. It’s more of an open space as opposed to kind of a learning environment with a classroom type environment. So by moving to Saegert, by moving Burges to Saegert, anyone who has been to Burges lately knows how much that campus is in disrepair and just has been treated harshly by mother nature over the years. It’s essentially ending it’s useful life for us so we feel that that would be a big boost for our students who are in that alternative education program and have actual real classrooms and a real school facility and a real school cafeteria where they can go everyday,” said Hoffmann.
The plan to bring all three programs under the same roof will have no impact on whether or not voters approve the Seguin ISD’s $64.7 million dollar bond issue. The bond issue is currently slated for a May 4. This plan, according to the district, stands alone and again will be conducted solely on funding that has been earmarked by the district to make the transition happen this coming fall.