Renovation plans officially underway for Barnes MS

(Seguin) – Barnes Middle School is next in line for a much-needed face-lift. Seguin ISD officials recently gathered with administrators and contractors for a special groundbreaking marking the beginning of the school’s expansion and renovation plans. The $25.5 million project was approved by voters in 2022.

Helping to oversee the project is Florin Popa with pbGroup Architecture. Popa says the project will help the school district align its middle schools while providing some much-needed elbow room at the local campus.

“The original school was built for two grades, 7th and 8th, and then they converted it from a junior high to a middle school so it’s three grades now. With the growth that is coming into this area, it’s obviously been affecting Barnes and Koennecke (Elementary School) and this area of the district more than others,” said Popa.

Popa says the plan is to tackle the larger, interior components of the campus. That includes the cafeteria, library and fine arts department.

“The cafeteria and library were way undersized. That was another focus that the district wanted to take on. The cafeteria was locked in so there wasn’t a cost-effective way to expand the cafeteria outwards which would have been quicker and cheaper so the only way to expand the cafeteria would be to basically take the classrooms, the art room and the choir that are behind the original stage that we are going to be removing and we are going to cut it down and expand the cafeteria into as far back towards those classrooms and those classrooms, we will convert into the new stage which is going to be much bigger than the original stage,” said Popa.

The district, this past April, was able to finally put the finishing touches at A.J. Briesemeister Middle School after nearly two and a half years of construction. Although the work at Barnes won’t be as extensive, it will undergo a significant transformation — upgrading the aging standards at the local campus.

“The scope is to expand the school by 12 classrooms. That’s basically taking the portables offline, displacing some classrooms throughout the campus, moving the art rooms so they can be more centrally located and then adding to the fine arts which would bring it up to the same standards to AJB — what we did at AJB.,” said Popa.

With the help of its contractor, the Koehler Company, crews hope to utilize much of the next two summers to construct much of the interior spaces. They say the less interruption for students and staff the better.

“Administrators were nice enough to say that they would work with the contractor and deal with a little more pain early so they can basically come back into their new facility and not have any contractors in their way. So, they are turning over the entire fine arts portion and moving some of those kids to the portables so the Koehler Company can go in and basically finish the stage in the fine arts area and the projected goal is to have the kids back into their new rooms in the fine arts by the end of the year, hopefully around the end of November,” said Popa.

Wrapping up the project at Barnes will be a much-needed queuing line in the school parking lot. The campus over the years has struggled by not having an adequate drop off and pickup system. The plan according to Popa is to construct a queuing line for up to 100 cars on the Barnes property, again similar to the one built at AJB. That project, however, won’t be tackled until next summer.

The renovation of Barnes is just one of several bond projects in the works for the Seguin ISD.