School funding is more important than ever. Education bonds – and wise stewardship of them – are more than investments in brick, concrete and air handlers. They’re investments in the future leaders of our communities.

As Texas public school districts enter a new educational landscape featuring the growing popularity of charter and private schools, public education bonds continue to play a cornerstone role in K-12 district funding and student success. To best utilize bonded funds and achieve consistently positive project outcomes, school districts need a general contractor that provides the personal touch and direct relationships that drive collaboration while also wielding the advantages of a national presence.

Balfour Beatty isn’t just a premier K-12 facilities builder in Texas, but across the country. From coast to coast and including decades of experience in Central Texas, our teams are recognized as preeminent experts on every type of K-12 project. On complete renovations, mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) overhauls, ground-up new campuses and more, our teams serve districts as a true partner. Backed by the strength of our national networks, advanced solutions and industry-leading K-12 expertise, we build the very schools that serve students where we live and work.

Deep Hill Country Roots

Balfour Beatty’s roots as a Texas education builder run deep. Even before our recent and successful history with Austin-area school districts, Balfour Beatty built a reputation as a premier, community-first builder for districts in Pflugerville, Katy, Georgetown and Round Rock.

That DNA remains very much an integral part of our Central Texas team’s spirit.

“K-12 clients are often used to working with smaller, local contractors, so they value our relationship-driven and collaborative approach,” says Operations Director Travis McGarraugh. “At the same time, we are a large, national firm, and we have the resources, widespread expertise and procurement market advantage that comes with it. With Balfour Beatty, clients get the best of both worlds.”

Even our operational distribution of personnel drives home that our success is built on relationships and collaboration, not on quick-turn profitability.

“We still hold to the mantra of ‘one superintendent, one job,’ rather than having team members bounce around several regional jobs,” Travis says. “There’s no ‘assembly line’ feeling to our work – our clients know their values, their needs and their goals matter to us and deserve our complete dedication.”

This approach has led to repeated successes across the region, with a particular focus in recent years on renovations and overhauls with aggressively accelerated summer schedules. And the scale of work our team can accomplish in just a 10-week span is truly staggering.

On Mendez Middle School, an Austin Independent School District (AISD) project completed in 2016, the team had only the summer to completely overhaul the 200,000-square-foot building’s second floor, drop and replace all ceilings, use that opportunity to also evaluate and ultimately replace all variable air value (VAV) fan-powered boxes, then have everything buttoned up and ready for students to return for the 2016-17 school year.

On many projects since, the team has repeated and exceeded that benchmark, delivering every facet of school construction from gymnasium renovations to entire high school performing arts centers for clients like Lake Travis ISD (LTISD).

Complete (Occupied) Campus Overhauls

On some projects, school districts understand that a single-summer project schedule is simply not possible. Still, our team works with each district to identify the most logistically advantageous project schedule, getting students back into newly renovated classrooms sooner. In the meantime, we collaborate tirelessly with the district and campus personnel to ensure a safety-first, Zero Harm approach to work on occupied campuses.

On the recently completed Odom Elementary School and the nearly completed Williams Elementary School, both complete campus renovations for AISD, our team has worked across one school year and one or two book-ending summers to give both campuses a completely new layout.

Both Odoms and Williams were originally built over 40 years ago, with (what were at the time) trendy open-concept classroom layouts throughout. But as with homes, hotels and office buildings, trends and community needs change, so Balfour Beatty and design partner Smith & Company provided complete internal renovations to designs that included learning pods in each classroom, new facilities for mental health centers and community pantries and enhanced campus security features.

“As much as schedule and budget are priorities for school districts, Balfour Beatty understands that student safety is even more paramount,” Travis says. “We work closely with our district partners on projects like Odom and Williams to ensure that students are safely separated from construction activities and that material deliveries and equipment usage interfere with learning as little as possible.”

Balfour Beatty’s complete facility overhauls have even extended to adaptive reuse, renovating existing shell structures to achieve an entirely new purpose.

Liberty Hill ISD was experiencing growing enrollment in the district’s Accessing Community through Career Environments for Student Success (ACCESS) program for adult students with special needs. A new facility was needed to provide these students with a caring and community-focused learning environment, so Balfour Beatty and design partner DLR Group helped the district utilize an existing annex structure behind their administrative building.

Far from a conventional education campus, the new ACCESS 18+ Education Center provides several simulation spaces that empower students to build useful skills at home, in the kitchen and in the workplace, including residential and commercial kitchens, laundry facilities, technology centers and more.

“Our team was honored to help Liberty Hill ISD prepare students with unique needs for the future,” Travis says. “The facility is one-of-a-kind and is a testament to our team’s ability to meet every district’s facility needs and at every scale, no matter how unique the layout or end use.”

Sticking to the Program

Balfour Beatty’s Central Texas education teams also excel at working with third-party construction program managers, a growing trend in the Texas K-12 construction market. While smaller contractors might not be amenable to the oversight of a program manager, our teams find that it perfectly aligns with our client-first values and our strengths as a national contractor.

In fact, our successful collaboration with managers like Spire Consulting and AECOM have resulted in some of our greatest K-12 success stories in Central Texas – both Odom and Williams are successful collaborations between the latter and Balfour Beatty. Where a program manager would typically handle aspects of project oversight including budgeting, procurement, design assistance and more, Balfour Beatty already has nationwide expertise (and the nationwide networks) to perform these tasks with excellence and client advocacy at the forefront. Program managers can be an important resource for districts to reduce long-term risk, but our partners often find that Balfour Beatty teams go above and beyond to make that crucial work as easy as possible.

“From the earliest stages of preconstruction through the very last punch list item and ribbon cutting, our teams leverage every tool and advantage to maximize the value of every dollar spent in education construction,” Travis says. “Our reach as a national contractor, with the tools, networks and reputation to obtain preferential procurement and reduce budget and schedule escalations, only strengthens our ability to best serve clients in our own communities.”

Prepared to Serve

On projects of every size and scope, from accelerated summer renovations to greenfield new campuses, for districts large and small alike, our Central Texas team is the premier partner of choice in education construction.

As we have proven across decades of dedication and hundreds of millions of dollars of successful projects, with Balfour Beatty, clients get the singular combined experience of a contractor that deeply cares about client and student success and has the national resources to make sure we never miss that mark.