Tea Area High School expansion update

By Dr. Jennifer Nebelsick Lowery

Over the past 18 months, the Board has studied the District’s growth, development, and finances. This process is in alignment with our strategic plan and goals to serve our students and community. In late February, the Board brought this work to the public, hosting two public meetings, one virtual meeting, and launching our high school expansion informational website. This site includes a video of the public meetings and can be found at teaarea.k12.sd.us; if you have not had a chance to review the reports and video we encourage you to do so.

Following the public meetings in February, the Board made a resolution in March to bring the $39 million High School Expansion project to a vote of the Tea Area School District taxpayers in June. This spring, the Board approved a contract with Koch Hazard Architecture. In addition, the Board approved a contract with Jans Corporation to serve as the Construction Manager At-Risk. A Construction Manager At-Risk, provides a guaranteed maximum price prior to the community vote.

The Board committee has worked with the architecture and construction management team to meet with multiple user groups within the District to develop the schematic design. The schematic design provides a picture of what the high school expansion will look like. During the May Board meeting, the committee will provide the schematic design and estimated associated costs to the full Board for their approval.

As a community, we identified our needs, developed the plan for our building transitions, and now work to build the facility to grow this community’s next generation of workforce and leaders. We invite you to continue this journey together as we build the Tea Area School District. Please join us for public meetings to review the schematic designs, answer questions, and share feedback. The meetings will be on Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 Frontier Elementary 5:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Tea Area High School 7:15 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. We will provide the informational meeting via a prerecorded video on our website as well. This video will be released on Friday, May 27th, 2022 following the in-person meetings.

Thank you for being a part of our Titan Family and engaging in this process to build our community and provide for our students of today and tomorrow.