Dallas board approves millions more for tornado-ravaged high school, but trustees unhappy with process

Dallas ISD will spend an additional $26.3 million for construction at Thomas Jefferson High School, one of three district campuses heavily damaged by an October 2019 tornado.

The district’s trustees unanimously approved the cost increase during its monthly board meeting last week, but not without consternation.

Several trustees expressed their displeasure for the last-minute way in which the items appeared on the January agenda.

Normally, trustees would get briefed on changes two weeks in advance of any vote. But updated figures for the renovation and new construction at Thomas Jefferson were given with less than a week’s notice. Trustees also didn’t get much in the way of communication with district administrators until two days before the vote.

“The fact that we’re discussing this, with only a few short days’ notice, is a really alarming place for us to be as trustees, as we consider the magnitude of what a project like this has for a community like TJ,” trustee Karla Garcia said.

A year ago, the board approved nearly $132 million in construction projects at two adjacent campuses, selecting to salvage — not completely rebuild — some of Thomas Jefferson’s structures while approving a new prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade campus on the neighboring site of Cary Middle School. Cary was completely destroyed by the tornado.

• The district didn’t receive full replacement costs from its insurance coverage.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency rejected the state’s request to issue a major disaster declaration for the storms, denying the district any access to federal relief funding.

Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, typically reserved during board meetings, offered an apology before a presentation for how the changes were presented on short notice. He vowed to “underpromise and overdeliver” on construction projects in the future.

Dwayne Thompson, the district’s chief business officer, explained that nearly two-thirds of the new request, $17.2 million, was unforeseen costs — either prompted by the permitting process through the city of Dallas or created because the existing structure lay dormant for almost a year.

The remaining dollars would go to expanding the original scope of the project. That includes upgrading the auditorium and creating “parity based on school capacity” for the high school’s career and technical education classrooms, as well as its visual and performing arts space.

This talk of parity rankled the board’s Black trustees: board president Justin Henry, Joyce Foreman and Maxie Johnson. The trio bemoaned the district’s willingness to change the scope of the project in the name of equity, while other projects in their southern Dallas trustee districts have not traditionally been afforded similar considerations.

“I just want the same love and respect for my community,” Johnson said.