Moody celebrates new state-of-the-art high school after seven years

Moody Mayor Nick Rutledge cut the ribbon on the City of Moody’s long-awaited new high school, a roughly $47 million campus that officials described as a state-of-the-art facility built to keep up with a growing student population.

The new Moody High School, part of the St. Clair County School System, opened after a seven-year effort that city officials said involved planners, architects, builders and education leaders, including principal Dr. Chris Walters and his team. At the ceremony Friday, April 10, Rutledge credited local taxpayers for making the project possible and said the opportunities for students are “endless.”

Project descriptions released during construction outlined a campus anchored by a roughly 95,000-square-foot academic building and a 7,000-square-foot storm shelter, plus a cafeteria and kitchen, a band hall and an activity practice gymnasium. Plans also included a 25,800-square-foot gymnasium with about 1,200 seats and the renovation of an existing gym into a performing arts facility with an approximately 800-seat auditorium. Reported project partners included Doster Construction Company, Ward Scott Morris Architecture, Inc., and Scout Program Management.

That kind of seven-year timeline is not unique to Alabama, and it is a useful yardstick for Hidalgo County taxpayers tracking what they actually receive when school construction runs long. One example sits in Pharr: PSJA ISD’s Phase II additions and renovations at Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School.

LBJ Middle School Phase II (PSJA ISD), planned vs. actual Planned cost: Over $11.4 million Actual contract amount: $11,644,793.28

Planned substantial completion: Aug. 11, 2022 Actual substantial completion: June 27, 2024

Schedule change: 685 delay days added by Change Order #3

The decisions that most directly drive delays are not ceremonial; they are contractual. In PSJA’s case, trustees approved Change Order No. 1 tied to construction materials price increases totaling $210,832, a governance decision that moved more cost onto the project while keeping work moving. Later, trustees approved Change Order #3 granting 685 delay days and resetting the substantial completion date to June 27, 2024, a formal acknowledgement that the district’s timeline had shifted by nearly two school years.

The scope, however, still matters to daily life on campus. At the 2021 groundbreaking, PSJA described the Phase II work as adding a new practice gym, a cafeteria with a large production kitchen, and converting an existing gym into a fine arts complex, along with an outdoor amphitheater, while investing over $11.4 million and adding 40,646 square feet to the campus. PSJA School Board President Jorge L. Zambrano said at the time the district would keep moving forward “despite the pandemic and other challenges our world is facing.” PSJA Superintendent Dr. Jorge L. Arredondo called the work part of the district’s effort to provide “state-of-the-art facilities” for students.

Moody’s new high school underscores the central accountability question for any long build, including Hidalgo County’s: when boards approve change orders and time extensions, taxpayers should be able to see, in plain numbers, whether the finished campus matches the original promise.