School Dist. 3 Voter Approve Bond for New Middle School
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Voters have signed off on a new Crescent Middle School, and the project is now on a defined, two-year clock. Anderson School Dist. 3 leaders say they are ready to break ground this spring, with students slated to start classes in the new building in August 2028.
The new school will sit beside Crescent High, turning what was once a stand-alone rural campus into a grade-six-through-twelve complex sharing fields, driveways, and some specialized spaces.
With 1,771 votes cast, representing a 20.91 percent voter turnout for the referendum, 926 voted in favor of the new school while 845 voted against it.
The new school has been framed as both overdue and forward-looking. Starr-Iva, the current middle school, dates to the early 1050s, which makes it the oldest building in Anderson School District 3 and, by the superintendent’s account, well past its intended useful life. Enrollment has crept up to roughly 640 students in a building rated for around 500, producing the narrow hallways, undersized classrooms, six-lunch-period days, and sit-on-the-floor assemblies that became the emotional core of the referendum campaign.
Dist. 3 folded the project into its “Premier Progress Vision 2026” plan, and spent roughly two years working with architects and financial advisers before taking the question to voters. The bond referendum authorizes the borrowing needed to build Crescent Middle on newly acquired land along Highway 81 South, across from Crescent High, as part of a larger strategy to modernize facilities and keep the district competitive in a region where consolidation is an ever-present possibility.
The estimated cost for the school is $60 million, the bond amount voters approved Tuesday to finance the construction of the school, which will replace the aging Starr-Iva Middle School.
District officials have secured a $5 million state grant as seed funding, reducing the local taxpayer burden, and the project benefits from prior land acquisitions totaling about $1 million for 72 acres in 2024 and additional parcels adjacent to Crescent High School. The total project scope includes design by Jumper, Carter, Sease Architects and construction by Harper Construction, with a guaranteed maximum price expected soon to lock in final costs.
The bond will fund a modern facility with larger classrooms, a proper gym/auditorium, expanded cafeteria, and shared high school resources, aimed at serving 640+ students through projected growth.
On the construction side, the pieces are already in motion. The current schedule that envisions site work beginning as early as April, followed by a roughly two-year build. If that holds, today’s fourth- and fifth-graders will be the first cohorts to walk into noticeably wider hallways and a gym large enough that no one has to sit on the floor to hear the band and enjoy other activities.
