Edmond board approves Santa Fe Freshman Academy plans, staff outline phased $18 million approach

The Edmond Public Schools Board on Dec. 12 approved plans for a two-phase Freshman Academy addition at Edmond Santa Fe High School, district staff said.

District staff presented the design as a roughly two-thirds first phase of a larger project tied to an $18 million bond allocation. Staff said the first phase will include about 12–16 classrooms so the facility can open for use in the 2026 school year; the cafeteria and some commons spaces are expected to be completed in a later bond phase. "This is a 2 phase project. We only have 18,000,000, so we're doing about 2 thirds of it first," a district presenter said during the meeting.

Board members and staff described the proposal as a way to address growth on the east side of Edmond without immediately building a new high school. Staff said the new building will be physically tied to the existing school so students will be able to move between buildings, and emphasized design choices intended to avoid an additional elevator and to limit parking loss. District staff described the full new freshman-academy structure as roughly 89,000 square feet and said the cafeteria will be about 25–30% larger than the current freshman cafeteria.

Board members asked about student flow, parking and the project schedule. Staff said utilities and portables in the existing area required early site work; storm-water and buried utilities will be located and either relocated or worked around during construction. Staff said choices about which half of the building is finished first were still being refined and that the board would see the project again with more detailed phasing and bid documents before construction contracts were awarded.

The motion to approve the plans passed unanimously. The board also discussed that Santa Fe’s freshman classes have ranged from roughly 650 to nearly 800 students in recent years and that the phased approach preserves future options for parking and further expansion.

Costs and next steps: staff said they will provide a later report with the exact construction schedule and bid timeline; the plan approved by the board at this meeting authorizes moving forward with the footprint and design to the next procurement steps. The board did not vote on construction contracts or final phase budgets at this meeting.