In a small portable building tucked between the rows of buses, scattered workshops and small offices of Arlington ISD’s Support Services Center, Arlington ISD’s school bus drivers take their breaks between routes.

It’s where they eat lunch, cool down and warm up, talking loudly over the hum of an overworked AC unit and old vending machines lining the 26-year-old walls. 

The building shows its age. The lights flicker, flecks of paint fall from the ceiling, the roof tends to leak during storms. Sometimes the doors don’t shut; sometimes there’s mold.

“You can look at this,” Vickie “Sister” Watson, a bus driver of about 30 years said as she gestured to the room, “and see we need a new facility.”

There’s good news for Watson and the district’s nearly 400 other drivers: new facilities are on the horizon.

Arlington ISD officials finished designs for a complete remodel of the Security and Transportation Center, which the break room is a small part of. The 32-acre complex in central Arlington also houses the district’s security, health, landscaping, transportation and maintenance departments — making it the beating heart of the district’s most essential functions.

Renovations are long overdue, said Kelly Horn, Arlington ISD’s assistant superintendent of facility services.

The project, which will cost an estimated $15.5 million, will combine functions from the complex’s biggest departments — the bus driver’s break room included — into a central new building, Horn said.

Many of the old structures, which vary in age and quality, will be flattened into new parking lots. Maintenance garages will get new AC and sliding doors, and the district’s about 300 buses, which at times sit exposed to the sun in uncovered lots, will be housed under new bus barns.

The project is funded by the district’s five-phase $966 million bond that voters approved in 2019. Initially, renovating the facility complex was in the fifth phase, meaning it wouldn’t have started for about another year, a district spokesperson told the Arlington Report.

But after hearing bus driver concerns over the complex’s current state, the district moved the project to phase three of its bond program, Horn said. 

“We listened, we heard what they needed, and we’ve tried our best to make this happen for them,” trustee Melody Fowler said during a June presentation of the building plans. “I just wish we could do it sooner.” 

After a few months of bidding for the project, demolition and construction is expected to begin in January 2025 for a planned completion in May 2026.

The complex was never considered “low priority,” Horn said. It’s hard to rank projects like this, which affect thousands of workers’ and students’ daily lives, he said.

“But we always put our administrative needs second to the needs of the students,” Horn said. “Students are why we’re here, so we try to put them first and ourselves second.”

That’s why auxiliary needs tend to fall on the back end of bond plans.

Projects at 65 elementary, junior high and high school campuses saw funding from the 2019 bond before the Support Services Center remodel.

In the district’s previous bond passed in 2014, renovations for the district’s administration building weren’t started until the final phase. It houses the majority of administrative operations, including the superintendent’s office and board meeting room.

The project carried over into phase one of the 2019 bond for completion in 2021 — seven years after voters approved its construction.

In the Support Services Center’s new central security and transportation building, combining the district’s transportation, security and health services departments into one space will have several strategic benefits beyond aesthetics, Horn said. 

The three teams need to work closely in emergencies. The building’s size also allows for long hallways that workers can queue in as they wait for their bus keys, supplies and assignments, instead of needing to wait outside in hot, cold and rainy weather. 

“Listening to our drivers and their concerns and their thoughts and honest assessments of our current facility, I can say with good faith that this facility, although we have to wait until 2026, addresses so many of those problems,” Sarah McMurrough, school board vice president, said at the June design presentation.

Practicalities and comfort aside, a break room facelift won’t change too much for bus drivers — in a good way, Watson said. 

They’ll stay a close-knit group, whether they eat lunch under a $15,000 roof or a $15 million one. They love the students, but the days are long, and building a supportive community with other drivers is necessary.

Still, Watson said, some new vending machines will be nice.

Drew Shaw is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.

At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.