January 23rd, 2008
Travis Elementary moves into new building

By BRAD ROLLINS
Managing Editor

When students and staff of Travis Elementary School moved into their new school on Tuesday, they didn’t have far to go. Their new school is right behind their own one on Post Road at Lime Kiln Road.

But there was still plenty to move over the weekend plus the holiday. The Travis community got help on moving day.

“I don’t know what we would have done without all the assistance we had from a lot of good folks,” principal Cynthia Pavia said. “Especially the team of students from Gary Job Corps who worked hard to get us moved in and set up quickly for classes.”

San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz and Pct. 3 Commissioner Will Conley also stopped by on Monday to tour the new facility and greet the volunteers and school district maintenance employees.

One of two new schools completed in time — or almost in time — for the spring semester, the new $11.8 million Travis Elementary is the latest completed project from a $137 building program that includes four new and four renovated campuses plus a maintenance and transportation facility. Crockett Elementary moved into its new home with the start of the semester.

At Travis, the building was not quite completed in time for the start of classes on Jan. 7 so the move-in was delayed until this week, the third of the semester.

The new campus totals 76,457 square feet clustered around a large cafeteria with stage area. The building will feature 64 classrooms, including 24 general learning classrooms, six kindergarten classrooms with a restroom in each, three resource classrooms, five special education classrooms with two outfitted for deaf education, gifted and talented classroom, speech therapy and testing room, large science and art classroom, music classroom and a computer lab.

Students of Gary Job Corps “adopted” the Travis Elementary School in 2000, and have routinely helped with many projects during the last eight years, school secretary Diana Guerrero said.

The Travis project will be completed with demolition of the old Travis building sometime this year.