Big Sandy Elementary School in Moundville officially opened a new 12,000-square-foot addition with 10 classrooms earlier this month, giving the 13-year-old campus long-awaited relief from overcrowding that had pushed students into portable classrooms. The school held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and classroom tour on October 5.
Superintendent Daniel Bray and school board members Randy Smalley and Neal Guy attended the event, according to the Dothan Eagle. The roughly $5 million project, first reported by The Tuscaloosa News, adds 10 rooms to a main building that is now 13 years old. Per that report, two women who handle the school's custodial duties have worked to make the new section and the original building appear seamless to visitors.
A School Built to Relieve Crowding, Now Crowded Itself
Big Sandy Elementary opened in August 2013 with an initial enrollment of 368 students in grades K-5 and the stated goal of alleviating overcrowding, according to Tuscaloosa Patch. Enrollment climbed to 447 students by the 2021-2022 school year and was 496 in 2023-2024. The school also used portable classrooms. The school sits at 11950 Upper Hull Road.
The growth reflects a broader pattern across southern Tuscaloosa County, where steady residential development has pushed student populations higher at multiple campuses. Big Sandy's academic offerings have also expanded alongside its physical footprint. In June 2026, Tuscaloosa Thread reported that two new First Class Pre-K classrooms were coming to Big Sandy Elementary in Tuscaloosa County for the coming school year.
New Leadership Overseeing District-Wide Facility Needs
Dr. Daniel Bray was appointed superintendent of the Tuscaloosa County School System in November 2025, after previously serving as the district's Director of Secondary Curriculum and Instruction since 2021, according to Tuscaloosa Thread. The Tuscaloosa County School System is the ninth-largest district in Alabama, serving more than 19,000 students across 36 campuses in communities outside the city limits of Tuscaloosa, per the district itself.
Campus safety at Big Sandy is maintained through dedicated School Resource Officers assigned by the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office, which covers all 34 county school campuses.
Funding Pressures Loom Over Future Projects
The Big Sandy expansion comes against a backdrop of tight capital budgeting for the district. In February 2023, an 8-mill property tax referendum was proposed that would have generated roughly $15 million annually for district-wide capital projects and safety improvements, according to Tuscaloosa Patch.
Future development elsewhere in the county could eventually ease some of that pressure. In September 2026, the Tuscaloosa County Economic Development Authority approved tax incentives for Applied Digital’s proposed $3.2 billion data center in Brookwood, Alabama, while the Brookwood City Council still had to vote on the project. The authority estimated that the proposed data center would generate more than $130 million in community benefit payments and tax revenue for the Tuscaloosa County School System over 20 years, according to Tuscaloosa Thread. For now, though, Big Sandy's new classrooms stand as a direct answer to years of mounting enrollment in one corner of a fast-growing county.
