Baird, Hampton & Brown is proud to donate our mechanical and electrical engineering services to the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District to build a new elementary school. The new school will replace Robb Elementary, where a tragic mass shooting took the lives of 19 children and two teachers in May of 2022.
This project is very important to BHB as we were extremely saddened by the events that took place a year ago in Uvalde. When one of our clients reached out and asked if we would like to be part of the design team, we jumped on it. BHB’s Co-Founder and Principal Bill Baird’s response was, “How can we not?”
A non-profit organization called the Moving Forward Foundation was established to raise funds for this project, and many companies, including BHB, are donating time, services, and supplies to provide a new safe space for Uvalde ISD elementary students. The Moving Forward Foundation continues to raise funds, and to date, nearly 70 percent of the $60 million goal has been raised.
Ian Bost, Principal and Senior Mechanical Engineer, is acting as BHB’s Project Manager for this job. “I love that work with a group of people that care this much about giving back,” he said. “Our interest wasn’t in what we will get out of it, but how can we help.” And it wasn’t just the principals who wanted to help—everyone on our design team reached out to Bost personally, asking to be part of the project.
In April of 2023, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District held a board meeting and approved the full schematic renderings created by Huckabee Architects.
The new 120,000-square-foot, two-story school is expected to serve 800 students in grades two, three, and four, with 12 classrooms per grade level. It will include an air-conditioned gymnasium, STEM laboratories, classrooms for science, music, and art, as well as multiple flex spaces and a variety of recreational areas.
The design came after months of meetings with parents, teachers, and school district leaders to discuss how to create an environment that feels safe for a community that has endured a tragedy. The five phases of emergency management (prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery) were considered throughout the whole process with the goal of meeting the children where they are in terms of trauma recovery.
It is expected to break ground in late summer 2023.