Brentwood Christian School

Brentwood Christian School

By Rebecca Nordquist Friday, 11 December 2009

AUSTIN — At Brentwood Christian School, the choir room shares a wall with the elementary school library, and the band room is next to the high school library. These are just two reasons why the pre-K through 12th-grade school is expanding with a 20,120 sq. ft. Center for Science and the Arts.

The proposed $4 million center, which includes a science wing, The Iva Lea Worley Barton Theatre and the Donna Baros Music Wing, is part of what the school’s founders envisioned for the campus more than 45 years ago. There is also a $500,000 remodel planned for Building C, which houses the biology, chemistry, art and computer classrooms, among others. The science classes will move to the science and arts center, and the art space and computer lab will stay put, doubling in size.

“This is the last of the long-range plan—the peak of that plan—but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop there,” said Deborah Hicks, admissions director, who added that the plan also made provisions for improvements such as an athletic center and an upper elementary building, which were built in 2000 and 2003, respectively.

While the plans for the center are drawn and the groundbreaking ceremony was in mid-November, the school is still raising capital through private donations and fundraisers. Hicks said they’re about 75 percent of the way there—with naming donations still available for the science wing.

“We’re hoping to raise 100 percent of the cost,” she said.

This hope coincides with the school’s goal to operate debt-free, and that is why the construction—slated to begin spring 2010 and end January 2011—is planned in three phases. The phases include: 1) the 350-seat theater and the music wing; 2) the science wing and 3) Building C’s remodel. In addition to the facility improvements, the school is also upgrading and even adding equipment where needed, including risers for the choir room, fume hoods for the science classrooms and new computers for the computer labs.

The expansion will not only provide a larger practice room for the 12-time Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools state-champion choir, an improved theater for the twice yearly drama productions and more space for science experiments, but it will also allow the 706-student school to grow its maximum enrollment of 790 students to 832. It specifically adds room for 42 secondary students.

Perhaps most important to Marquita Moss, BCS president, the new center and classroom expansion gives additional “opportunities to broaden [students’] perspectives and open doors they would have otherwise not entered.”

“I’ve seen kids bloom [through the arts],” said Moss, a former University of Texas instructor who has been with BCS for 31 years. “The quintessential nerd opens up, the ultimate athlete finds multiple dimensions to their person. They see other ways to flourish.”

And with no doubt, the expansion will also give the campus libraries some peace and quiet.