Tucson Unified School District has landed a $41.1 million federal grant to help build a brand-new Frank Borman K-8 School at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, replacing a nearly half-century-old campus that serves military families and has struggled with aging infrastructure. The grant, awarded Wednesday, is the federal share of a larger $54 million project to construct a new school building for the 604 students it's expected to serve once finished.
The award comes from the federal government's Public Schools on Military Installations Program, according to KVOA, which reported the money is meant to address facility capacity and condition deficiencies at the current school. Frank Borman serves kindergarten through eighth-grade students and is primarily attended by kids from military families stationed at Davis-Monthan, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
The school's need for an upgrade isn't new. Frank Borman ranked 46th on the 2019 Deputy Secretary of War's Public Schools on Military Installations Priority List, per the same KVOA report, a ranking that reflects just how badly the facility needed attention even years before this grant came through.
A School Building Pushing Fifty Years Old
Frank Borman Elementary School opened back in April 1977, according to the school's own About Our School page, which also notes that Borman is the only Tucson Unified school located on a military base. Nearly five decades of wear have shown. In January 2024, the campus's old HVAC system left the school without heat during the coldest stretch of that winter, KVOA reported at the time.
The federal program behind the new grant specifically gives priority to military installations whose schools have the most serious facility capacity and condition deficiencies, according to the station's report. That framing lines up with what officials describe as the twin goals of the Borman project: fixing a tired building and making room for more kids.
How the Grant Fits Into a Broader Federal Program
The money for Borman flows from the Department of War's Public Schools on Military Installations Program, the article notes, a federal effort authorized through Section 8109 of Public Law 112-10 to fund construction, renovation and expansion projects at schools located on military installations, per a 2011 notice in the Federal Register. A Grants.gov posting lists independent school districts as eligible applicants. The program overall has invited schools ranked 60 through 71 on the Deputy Secretary of Defense's priority list to apply, the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation says.
Tucson's award is part of a pattern of similar grants going to schools on bases around the country. The same federal office has listed a $78 million grant for Chesterton Elementary School at Naval Base Point Loma in California, and it awarded Albuquerque Public Schools $35.8 million for Sandia Base Elementary School at Kirtland Air Force Base, a project expected to serve up to 576 students once complete, per the office's news release. A separate 2022 announcement covered by DVIDS also described a planned $96 million grant to the Hawaii Department of Education under the same general program.
What Comes Next for Borman Families
For families at Davis-Monthan, the grant represents the most concrete step yet toward replacing a building that has shown its age in increasingly visible ways, from the capacity strain described in the federal priority ranking to the heating failure families endured in 2024. The $54 million total project cost, with $41.1 million covered by the federal grant, signals a full new campus rather than a patchwork fix.
Construction is expected to start in December, TUSD spokesperson Karla Escamilla said. What is clear is that a school built in 1977 to serve one generation of military kids is now set to be replaced by a facility designed for 604 students, a scale meant to serve the base's families for years to come.
