HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - September 20, 2023 School Capital Needs Workgroup Agenda with minutes ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO BOARD OF EDUCATION
ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
Capital Needs Work Group
September 20, 2023
Meeting— 8:30-10am
The Capital Needs Work Group is conducting a Virtual Meeting on September 20, 2023.
Members of the Group will participate in the meeting remotely.
Panelists: Jean Hamilton, Bonnie Hauser, Jessica Goodell, Al Ciarochi, Alan Dorman, Andre
Stewart, Catherine Mau, David Sturtz, Dwayne Foster, Gary Donaldson, Greg Wilder, Patrick
Florence, Perdita Holz, Rani Dasi, Rob Olsen, Steven Arndt, Travis Myren, Kelly Guadalupe
1. Welcome—Commissioner Jean Hamilton, Chair of Work Group
2. Woolpert Inc. Update: Results of data analysis on current state: Key
findings on condition of schools and information on space types and
adequacy(20-30 minutes)
• Questions on conditions assessment:
• Catherine: please remember to change the terminology to Carolina
terminology for educational spaces
• Jean: On the horizontal axis I can read that as, for academic support
CHCCS, almost 40% of those spaces are undersized. What are the
mechanics of this?
• Answer: We calculated square footage of each space, categorized by
function, then we looked at floor plans and did some quality control.
Each space was given a square foot minimum, majority of those given
from NC DPI. For some, NC DPI didn't have space requirements. We
backed those down so it applied no matter if it's below 400 students or
not. We look at those standards for each room type, in terms of
minimum sq. footage. If space is less than 90% of minimum square foot
size,then we call it undersized. So we then counted every space and saw
the count of those that are present and less than 90%of standard.
• Bonnie: One school has a secured entry but no office you enter in to.
How would that show up here?
• Answer: That's an adjacency issue. Exterior canopies or controlled
entry points don't have a square foot here. It's binary: present or not.
What you're describing is that you really want a controlled entry point
to go to an office, and this isn't how many of our older schools are
designed. Those kind of considerations is what goes in to the options
development. We created the options methodically, from conservative
to biggest reasonable change. If you see something that might be
missing,that you want it to be a standard,the entry point to be an office,
then call it out when we get to that school,and we can model the remedy
cost.
• Questions on capacity:
• Jean: Mobile classrooms, were they included?
• Answer: They were excluded. We assessed and counted them. They
were in draft original calculations but I removed them because you don't
plan for long term use of mobile units
• Bonnie: In Orange County we have a waitlist on pre k, is it counted?
Does this factor in the new class sizes for elementary?
• Answer: yes &yes
• Jean: Remind me what the sweet spot is?
• Answer: A building, you want it to be between 80 and 100% utilized.
You want a little room to breathe,but not space that isn't being utilized.
From an FCI standpoint,between 0 and 30 is the ideal to fair range,over
a 5 year horizon. On the graph it's the blue shaded area. Ideally all
circles are in the blue area. This would imply you've kept up with
deferred maintenance, etc.
• Jean: The size of the circles, what does that represent?
• Answer: Gross square footage of facility. Your older schools,
particularly at the elementary level,were designed with an homogenous
design structure. Over time school size has increased to sustainably
afford a holistic education for kids.
• Bonnie: Did you look at air quality? I have parents and teachers saying
that kids are sicker when school is in session and also there's a research
area around sick schools.
• Answer: We didn't specifically test indoor air quality. We did look at
reports provided and looked at HVAC systems. We double checked
reports,and where there was a note on poor air quality we recommended
some systems for replacement. We also looked at the envelope: walls,
roofs, etc.
• Rani: What does educational space types percentages mean?
• Answer: Carrboro elementary, for example we identified that 61% of
those space types were available in the building. 9%of those were below
standard size. Then 48% of things we were looking for were identified.
• Answer: If you were to ask why the FCI for Carrboro Elementary would
be the same as Northside, and the answer would be what you've fixed
at Carrboro elementary previously, that's keeping its FCI lower.
• Bonnie: Thinking about this for Tuesday on the colors,it's a good thing,
but it's showing in red.
• Answer: Our theme is red is high blue is low,but we could adjust that.
• Bonnie: For the presentation, what is the projections on capacity for
both school districts?
• Answer: We haven't received this from Ored yet. They said they'll have
it in October. We understand the trend line in Chapel Hill is flat to
declining. We're planning with that swag at this point. When we get the
Ored projections we'll see if that changes any of the options
• Bonnie: I think that's important to clarify. On Tuesday there will be a
very big audience for this.
• Perdita: My recollection about Carrboro HS when it was constructed
was that it was always intended to get another wing when capacity
indicated it was needed. That's one of the reasons it was built smaller.
• Bonnie: Capacity numbers of these schools seems higher than we
believe and one of the challenges we've had is the capacities often
exclude pre k usage. Capacity seems high. We see Efland Cheeks at
120%utilization not 102%.
• Catherine: I went back and combed through every SAPFO report
comparing it to the square footage. It appears that the 1999 addition to
Efland never made it on to the SAPFO charts. There was a new metric
introduced in the year 2000 and I believe it got caught up in that.
• Perdita: SAPFO didn't get signed until 2003, so it's odd that something
from 1999 wouldn't be included.
• Answer: We looked at SAPFO capacities. I divide capacity by square
footage of building. That gives me an idea of square foot per student.
It's a great equalizer across districts. What I noticed is that there were
wild swings and very high assumptions behind that in some cases. Quite
frankly I didn't buy some of those numbers. When I look at the
classroom counts,what you have in the buildings,it gave us some pause
on using SAPFO without further investigation. So we went to Ored and
asked about capacities, and the gist was that "we've been given these
capacities".
• Bonnie: Hillsborough Elementary is a choice school and it's at capacity,
but this shows it's at 76%capacity. My fear is that the capacity numbers
include pre-k and enrollment doesn't include pre-k. but that's a guess
• Answer: That's not the case.Utilization is total number enrolled divided
by total capacity.Enrollment doesn't include pre-k enrollment. How are
they using the pre-k spaces? If a classroom is there and not being used
as a classroom, then that's lowering the utilization.
• Bonnie: I'd like to discuss the numbers further, there is a problem with
them
• Jean: Getting the numbers right is important. Let's look forward and not
get hung up too much about numbers from the past. We should know
now about capacity and utilization.
• Answer: Our basic assumption is based on classrooms available, what
can the building hold? What the program in building is doing with its
space is a different question. That's operational capacity. What we have
is a buildings capacity. Those can be different and both can be valid. In
a long term capital plan we want to look at what a building can do.
3. Discussion and Group Next Steps
• Bonnie: There's a couple of things on our side. We're looking at an
alternative middle school. Those have very small classrooms so we
don't get same capacity. There's a question about a k-8 year round.
I don't know how to factor those things in.
• Rani: I know we talked about October timing on how to go forward
on SAPFO.
• Jean: SAPFO process has slowed down so it's not clear we need a
meeting in October to talk about SAPFO. However I would like a
meeting in October. Thank you for this presentation. It's a lot. I'd
like to talk more about the questions that have come up.
• Rani: The implication is that we'll use the current process for
SAPFO and November reporting will be based on current standards
• Jean: SAPFO is a document for deciding on building new schools
and caps towns would put on development, but neither of those are
the case at this time. There's no impact of that currently, so I think
we're ok. And folks that are redistricting can use the numbers they
feel best. I don't want to get derailed by SAPFO process vs. looking
at future.
• Rani: It's good for schools to have guidance on process going
forward. Legends on the slides would be helpful, and red typically
means bad
• Travis: We're putting together a timeline for the SAPFO
consideration. We'll have Ored and SAPFO projections and can
compare and contrast those. Ored will be ready in mid-October and
SAPFO projections won't be ready until December.
• Jean: Next meeting can we continue the discussion?
• David: Woolpert has been talking to County staff and they've
offered to do some modeling, and we can discuss a reasonable range
for funding at our next meeting. We will craft recommendations in
line with reasonable increase ideas on funding. So that it moves you
forward on these needs while also being feasible and attainable.
• Jean: Also it's ok to give the aspirational.
• David: yes
• Jean: We have a community that cares about schools so we don't
want to limit ourselves.
Looking forward to meeting next week,let's be sure to define things
and have legends, acronym explanations, etc. given our community
and how they care and want to understand what this looks like.
4. Next Meeting is October 18, 2023
Adjourn
Capital Needs Work Group virtual meetings are open to the public to attend remotely. Should
any member of the public wish to view this meeting, please click the following link to register:
Capital Needs Workgroup Registration Link
After registering, you will receive a follow-up email which will allow you to access and view the
meeting. If you have any comments or questions, would like to submit any written comments to
the group, or would like an emailed copy of the entire agenda package for this meeting, please
email Kelly Guadalupe at kguadalupekoran ems. nc._ov before 3:00 pm on September 19,
2023