On Nov. 8, 2022, Travis County voters passed a $2.4 billion bond package for Austin ISD, the largest school bond package to pass in Central Texas. McCallum was not on the first draft on the ballot but was added after the district heeded community feedback and allocated $66.55 million to modernize the Mac campus.

The bond budgeted $8 million for athletic field upgrades, technology and furniture, $22.9 million for soft costs and other costs, including surveying fees, materials testing, permitting and inspections. The rest, $35.59 million is for project construction.

McCallum is set to receive a phased modernization, meaning that instead of being fully demolished and rebuilt within one bond cycle, it will take three or even four phases to be completed.

In theory, this means that McCallum is due to receive funds for the next phases every bond cycle, which occurs approximately every five years. Phase two then should be approved in late 2027 and finish around 2031. Then, phase three should be approved in late 2032 and completed in 2036. And finally, phase four should be approved in late 2037 and completed in 2041.

Bond implementation supervisor Jorge Ledesma says that this timeline won’t work.

“That’s like 15 years from now,” Ledesma said. “It’s like, ‘So I’m gonna get a new school in 20 years?’ McCallum really needs to get phase two and three and maybe even four in one shot.”

For now, the focus is mainly on making repairs and improvements that can keep the campus afloat until the next phase of the bond is approved, which will involve demolishing and then replacing the majority of the school.

The Campus Architecture Team, or CAT, a group of community members and AISD parents who are providing input on McCallum’s renovation, has expressed concerns about this allocation because a majority of the funds from the construction portion of the bond were slated to be used for facility improvements for a building that is set to be entirely demolished within the next couple years. In a meeting on Feb. 12, the CAT was given a new maintenance improvement scope, which reduced the costs of replacing roofing, A/C, ductwork and piping from $36 million to $11.5 million. The money that was gained back from reducing improvement costs was put back into construction, and now the construction budget has been adjusted so that more money can be spent on the two main components of phase one: a secure entry vestibule and an academic addition.

The secure entry vestibule will go where the front office is now located. It will rearrange the way the office is laid out, flipping the counselor and reception area so there is a clearer view of the front entrance of the school. It will also create a two-door entry system so that visitors are required to check in at the front office in order to enter the building. It will also close in the space adjacent to the office by the side entrance to the cafeteria and create a new meeting space.

A significant part of the 2022 bond is a new academic building that will replace the existing science hallway. The new building will be approximately 50,000 square feet across three stories and will contain 12 science labs, four CTE labs, four studios (smaller classrooms), three professional learning centers (shared teacher offices) and three collaborative spaces. The collaborative spaces will be part of the main hallway, which will be about 27 feet wide. After the academic building is finished, the existing science hallway will be demolished.

Principal Andy Baxa said that the plan for all phases is to keep students on campus and avoid having to move elsewhere during construction.

“There’s just too many unknowns,” Baxa said. “I don’t ever envision McCallum will leave the campus. At worst, we bring in a bunch of portables and we would create another portable city somewhere and house whatever we’re losing in the portables.”

Ledesma says that McCallum renovations have been put off for so long because it’s hard to be a funding priority in such a large district.

“We have approximately 130 campuses, and out of those 130, maybe 70 need to be redone,” Ledesma said. “And in the past AISD has kind of let that slip a little bit, so now we’re kind of swimming against the current.”

Baxa says it’s because there has been less community output.

“The best I can point to [for McCallum being put off for so long] is the fact that our community doesn’t speak up,” Baxa said. “You’ve got to show up to meetings, you got to make your voice heard. Anderson and Bowie parents did that a lot more than we did, and so they got taken care of.”

In the 2017 bond, McCallum received $8 million for a new dance addition, which is in the final stages of construction. Anderson (built in 1973) received $11 million for general maintenance upgrades, and Bowie (built 1988) received $91 million for Phase 1 of a full modernization and a new parking garage.

In 2013, McCallum received $20 million for mainly a new weight room facility and general upgrades and repairs. Anderson received $24.9 million for a new gym, locker and weight rooms, track resurfacing, and other general repairs. Bowie received $34 million for a pastry shop, media lab, technology studio, updated training room and food lab, as well as new practice fields, expanded locker and weight rooms and track resurfacing.

“But that’s also why the 2022 bond program had such a radical shift in direction is because they saw some of the things that they viewed as being inequitable, where certain communities got more than other communities whenever they didn’t really need more than the other communities,” Baxa said. “I can’t say that Anderson needs everything that they’ve gotten. They’re at a much better position than a lot of other schools, but they have the vocal community that gets the support.”

Both Ledesma and Baxa agree that the key to getting McCallum to where it needs to be is community involvement, especially in the voting process.

“If we were to go step by step and in the 2027 bond McCallum gets voted for phase two, we still have to put [that to] a vote. So you’re not gonna get anything if people don’t vote for it,” Ledesma said.

Baxa feels that continual support is crucial in order for McCallum to meet the needs of future students and for each phase to build upon the previous one.

“If it doesn’t pass, I’ve always told [the bond committee] that we’ve got to be at net zero,” Baxa said. “I can’t have a negative situation here because just in case a situation happens where we don’t get the next bond, we at least have classroom and lab spaces to accommodate the needs for what we lost. And we can make it work for a couple of years if we have to. But there’s never been a bond package with AISD that hasn’t passed at least somewhat. Now there have been parts of it that didn’t pass, but there’s always been at least something that got passed. So we’ll just have to wait and see what direction the bond committee takes us in ‘27.”