Hey! Finally, A Price Tag For Fort Bend ISD's Grand New Science Center

By Richard Connelly Tue., Jun. 16 2009 at 12:55 PM

Categories: Education

Photo by antkriz

The deep, dark mystery of just how much it's going to cost to build the proposed Fort Bend school district's elaborate "science center" has been solved -- to a degree.

The school board approved a resolution recently that more or less caps the cost at $26 million.

And now former Sugar Land mayor David Wallace has said he will lead the effort to get at least $5.3 million in private donations towards the project.

The so-called "Global Science and Technology Center" will house all kinds of labs and stuff that would generally be in individual schools, with the added benefit of making kids schlep all the way over to it.

School officials say the center will be able to provide services and equipment far beyond what could be done in individual schools; critics say the thing's a boondoggle.

As the website Fort Bend Now reports:

Trustee Susan Hohnbaum, who had expressed stronger reservations about the project than anyone else on the board, said Monday night she remains concerned that the administration won't be able to make good on a claim that all student science classes in grades 2 through 8 will visit the new center four to six times per school year.

The new facility will be designed by the Houston architectural firm PBK architects who, as we've noted before, has a tendency to talk school districts into big, expensive projects.

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