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Facility Planning Introduction
Susan Quinn May 31, 2010
During a series of interviews,
the District 15 Board selected an architectural
planning firm to guide the district in a Facility
Planning process that will hopefully address many of
the concerns facing the district with regard to
declining enrollment, facility use, and optimizing
our spaces for 21st century learning. State law
prevents these services from being bid out (please
thank the architectural lobbyists for this), so the
district is forced to consider firms based on
expertise, not cost. However, if the cost of the
planning process (which is expected to be a 6-12
month process) is excessive, as judged by the Board,
the Board may refuse to approve the proposal and
consider another firm. Now that the Board has given
direction to the Facility Planner (OWP/P
Cannon Design) for scope of services, they
should come back sometime in late June with cost
estimates for a contract. If approved at that point,
the facility planning process will begin.
Assuming approval, the facility
planner will use information from the previous
architectural study (which had the disappointing
result of gathering data, but not moving forward
with possible changes in building use), and will
start bringing together a steering committee of
approximately 50 parents, administrators, community
members and possibly board members. This steering
committee will consider a host of issues that face
the district, including:
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Declining
enrollment/building use: Generally
speaking, elementary buildings on the east side
of the district are crowded, with the elementary
buildings on the west side not. As a result,
elementary students are often bused far from
their homes to attend school, adding to our
transportation costs. Conversely, there are NO
junior high buildings on the west side of the
district (Smith road is the dividing line of the
district and there are no junior high buildings
west of there) and so junior high students are
often bused far from their homes to attend
schools on the east side. The district owns
property on Ela Rd. that, at one time, was
considered a site for a future junior high. I
believe we should take a look at whether we
require a junior high at that location in the
foreseeable future, and if not, consider
alternate uses for the property, including
selling it, to recoup money for the district to
use for other capital improvements. At the same
time, enrollment continues to decline: an
examination of district boundaries could better
serve students and, at the same time, reduce
transportation costs.
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CLA/Special Education services: CLA
houses most of our special education services,
and having special education services located in
a single building makes much educational sense.
However, since CLA is located in the far eastern
corner of the district, special needs students
some as young as 3 years old often spend 45
min or more on the bus to get there. Serving
these students well requires a re-examination of
the best location for a CLA-like facility.
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Building Use/Condition: Many of our
buildings are aging, and although they are well
maintained, will need some substantial capital
improvements in the future. As a district, we
want to plan for these necessary capital
improvements, and make sure that we are
leveraging our building use to meet the
educational needs of our students.
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Educational Programming: All day
kindergarten, Dual Language Schools, Magnet
schools for Gifted or Science/Technology, Grade
Level Centers: these are all educational
programming options that the district should
consider as it moves into the second decade of
the 21st century. Declining enrollment presents
some challenges, but also provides breathing
room within our buildings to repurpose for
better educational outcomes.
This is a lot for the steering
committee to consider, but there are two driving
imperatives that I have emphasized in our early
talks with the Facility Planner, and will continue
to emphasize as we move forward: 1) Whatever changes
we make must be educationally beneficial for our
students, or at a minimum cause no adverse affects,
and 2) The community must be an integral part of
this decision making process.
The District 15 schools belong to
the community that supports them, and that sends
their children to every day. While the community is
not a monolith we have many varied opinions about
what is important and how the schools should be run
large decisions that could change the way our
schools are organized or function must involved the
community. I believe our facility planners
understand this well. More importantly, they have
facilitated school planning processes in other
districts that have involved the community along
every step of the way.
Please see
this article in the Daily Herald.
What will it cost?
There are necessary capital
improvement costs that we must expend every year,
just to keep up with roof repairs and aging carpet,
mechanical, and electrical systems. The changes
above may cost or save the district money, depending
on what direction the community and Board decide to
take the district. I will not be in favor of raising
taxes on our community to fund a large scale capital
improvement project with declining enrollment and
a down economy, it just doesnt make sense. However,
I will be in favor (as I have all along) of
responsibly using our bonding capacity for necessary
capital improvements, especially if those
improvements also enhance the education of our
students. Assuming the bond petition is sustained,
and the board either revokes the bond issue or it is
voted down in November, the district will have a
small amount of bond capacity available for future
projects. When the community and the board have
completed the facility planning process, it is my
hope that we will have a consensus on how to best
use the resources that we have to improve our
schools and the education our children receive.
If you have any questions, feel
free to contact me.
Regards,
Sue Quinn
District 15 Board of Education
Susan.quinn@comcast.net
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