Valor South Austin Permanent Home: Frequently Asked Questions
TIMELINE
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Our beautiful new campus is nestled on the outskirts of the hill country. The compilation of buildings will feature a library, designated rooms for art and music, science labs, lockers for the students, and a black box theater for high quality theater productions. Each classroom will have ample space and natural light. The U shape of the building is designed to encourage students, faculty, and staff to orient themselves in connection with nature. The interior courtyard, sculpted by the U shape design, will serve as a natural space for students to walk through daily. Our Valor athletes will condition and build strength utilizing the weight room to prepare for competitions held in one of our two gyms or on the athletic field. The ability to have everything hosted on our own campus will allow more of our faculty and staff to attend games and limit the amount of time families spend commuting to practices and home games.
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Construction plans project that the east wing, which includes K-5 classrooms, will be ready for Fall 2024. Upper School (6-12 grade) students will begin the school year at our rented facility at 220 Foremost Drive and will move to the new campus mid-year once the building has been completed.
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To fund this incredible new facility, we have taken out a loan based on increased enrollment. The addition of new students will help fund the project. Our largest growth is in K-5 grades. Our current location is at maximum capacity and does not have space for additional students.
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Many teachers teach a wide range of grades and have an overlap in teaching 6-12 grades. It is logistically more feasible to have just K-5 start on new campus because there is less grade-level overlap.
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For the past five years, in addition to preparing for the new Valor South Austin campus, we have worked closely with the construction team to build both the Kyle campus and currently the North Austin Expansion. The team has a proven track record for running on schedule. Prior to starting construction, we procured building supplies and materials which are currently being stored until installation time. In addition, factors such as weather delays have been calculated into the project timeline. Our team has construction acceleration dollars built into the budget as an incentive for accelerating the project. The original timeline was on a 16-month schedule, then a 12-month schedule, and now is a little less than 10 months. The construction crew works six days a week. We are committed to having our Upper School students in their classrooms mid-year.
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The campus is over the Edwards Aquifer and is a highly restricted area, so this will need to be investigated further. We have impervious cover restrictions that limit how much pavement we can have on the property.
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Foot traffic and construction traffic will be separated from the school with construction fencing that will temporarily separate the site. We have been doing this at Valor North Austin by switching the construction entrance to a parent entrance for an hour and a half twice each day. City ordinances require us to have only one driveway.
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We will continue to look at the data, especially as we get closer to moving into the new facility. We have done some significant drive time mapping. We did find that, on average, current families live just a little bit closer to the new location as compared to our current campus. We will combine that drive time mapping with the breakdown of kids in multiple campuses to determine the best plans for families.
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The faculty is the heart of the school. We have done significant work as the leadership team looks at the number of teachers in this situation. We have been thinking about ways to address concerns and talk with them. If we need to make modifications to people's schedules to get them through this, we will be flexible. We do not want to lose our amazing people over a temporary situation.
LOGISTICS
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We have two giving campaigns dedicated to Valor South Austin. Our annual giving campaign, Invest in the Vision, helps us recruit and retain excellent teachers to educate your children and helps bridge the gap between the money we get from the state and the money needed to provide a high-quality Valor education to our students. If you would like to contribute or learn more, contact Ms. Edith Barvick at ebarvick@valoreducation.org.
Our capital campaign, Putting Down Roots, is designed to help fund $3 million dollars of the $47 million-dollar new campus project. All donations given to this campaign remain at Valor South Austin to help build the best facilities for our students. During the Quiet Phase of the campaign, which ran August 2023 - February 2024, a small group of Valor South Austin families contributed lead gifts. Once the lead gifts were secured, the Public Phase began. Currently, we are in the Public Phase and seeking gifts from families, businesses, and organizations who are like minded and wish to partner to build a heritage for generations to come. If you would like more information about the capital campaign, please contact Mrs. Wellman at lwellman@valoreducation.org.
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Donations given by Valor South Austin parents and grandparents stay at Valor South Austin to benefit the school.