Notes from 5-22-18 BCSD Work Session

Welcome: Mr. Coen


Review:


(Missed notes for the first few minutes - near full attendance)


Coen - Need frequent clear communication to all people involved. As long as we follow the communication protocol we should be fine. Greg - something - person moving near me made it hard to hear and Greg has a soft voice. Coen - passed out a copy of the boards policy on class to board members. The board has said we have size no more than 24 students in K-2, 26 in 3rd, 28 in 4-5th, and I think the same up? Robberts - these numbers did not come out of thin air, this was decided with discussion years ago. Courtney - November 2005 about. Coen passed out number of class size paper. Coen - we will continue to lose enrollment, Siemens has already closed and people moved. Only general education was accounted. The sheet had the following.







The following data is based on the enrollment number as of May 22, 2018, with acknowledgement that it appears BCSD will continue to lose in excess of 70 students per year in the foreseeable future. Is is important to note that only classrooms capable of holding general educations were counted as smaller rooms with student capacity under 15 were not included.


Attendance Center: Maximum Capacity




Black Hawk: 756

63% capacity (-37%)

69% capacity (-31%)


Corse: 504

60% capacity (-40%)

66% capacity (-34%)


Grimes: 644

56% capacity (-44%)

62% capacity (-38%)


North Hill: 616

54% capacity (-46%)

60% capacity (-40%)


Sunnyside:756

59% capacity (-41%)

65% capacity (-35%)


Aldo Leopold: 784

48% capacity (-52%)

48% capacity (-52%)


Edward Stone: 784

57% capacity (-43%)

57% capacity (-43%)


BHS: 1500

83% (with freshman added)

83% capacity (-17%)


The percentage difference between the columns for elementary and secondary capacities is due to board policy requiring K-2 grades maximum class size of 24 and third grade and up to 26 students. Policy 605.1 states a maximum class size of 28 for grades 4-12.


All Elementary Schools Combined


Column One - 208%


Column Two - 148%

Both Middle Schools combined


Column One and Two -95%

High School:


Column One and Two - 17%. However, how often are the roomes used? Do all teachers have their own rooms? Does each department have its own lounge?

Overall/District Wide:


Column One All Schools- 321%


Column Two All Schools - 290%






Coen - Shows the capacity or the architect per square footing it is law. Next column shows board policy this is how many children. Based on the floor plan of each building. We did not count classrooms like reading recovery or special ed with 5 kids. Enrollment numbers are 479 BH, 301 Course, 362 at Grimes, 331 NH, 448 SS, AL 375, ES 445, HS 1090. He read his sheet comparing board to. Coen - Data is skewed at the high school, 519 in 1980 (but 3 grades at the time). 90 student last year graduated . Four classes now and doesn't add up to what it was years ago. Bross - could you give us the first year number of students in each of those building to compare? Coen - Newer and Fewer something. Hatteberg - she was there at some point, Courtney mentioning his time there. Kendell - Aldo, ed stone, BHS - High school does not have a class size, there are some classes over 30. Coen - Decided to follow board policy vs. architect for the paper. He talked about the emptiness at th bottom of the sheet over 100 %. Not sure at the high school since they don’t know what are lounges. Robberts called on his % 200% being odd logic She is trying to put it into a fraction, the over 100% doesn’t make sense. Coen is calling 100% = 1 building. Kendell - what has changed in education to account for those rooms? Are the rooms being used for another purpose. He was a freshman the first year it had freshman at BHS. Robberts - you’re old (to Kendell). Coen has heard rumors that there are teacher lounges, or classes are only being used for 2 periods. Concerns are noted. Robberts- we have added special ed rooms. She doesn’t see unused space. She is not saying we are wasting space, but maybe we could get rid of a book room or move a preschool. Bross - We are maybe down a building but not 2. Coen - He gets lots of letters and one says we please listen to our concerns and those comments weighs heavy on his heart. 500 students to less than 200 (BHS), we have to account to 300 students x 13 grades. We have good teachers otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Demographics have changed The average woman is 39 years. 42 - 63% free and reduced lunch. Free lunch went up - poverty increased exponentially. Great school but the baby boomers are gone, people are moving away. We are trying to save students 50% of their college cost. 20% of Burlington people have a BA so people who go away don’t come back. We need to have students be ontime, be respectful and do their work - it is a 20 year plan. It is not easy and is daunting, but it is good that you all are at the table. Burlington is one of the poorest districts in the state. We will likely have to close a building, but it might not be Corse. Parent told him- Pat, you have our children in our hands. What are we doing, why, how and where do we go from there? Do nothing is very seldom a good option SPRC something. State will tell us to close a specific building if we don’t do it first. JMEC is making us money because we are keeping kids here and not sending them away, we need to do something like that. Turned over to people in audience - ask - do any one of you have questions about the current situation? Nothing. Coen - Pressure would not be as bad if state allocated more money. Brueck - we have to do something to save stuff. Robberts - we would have to raise property tax to help with the huge shortfalls. Kendell - Greg's budget is thorough. Next year will be a big hit, we will need to raise tax, double class size, etc. Coen - with Siemens closing, multiple families are moving away, and tells people we can’t hire people them because of declining enrollment.


Iowa Construction Advocate Team (ICAT) (Two gentlemen and one lady)


Any district who has facility needs, they call us to help out. They travel all around to over 180 districts. You are not alone, we are not talking about solutions today, but this is more of an informal meeting and the board can ask any questions when you need to. We will to give you solutions at some point in the future. We will share some examples. You need to engage every stakeholder in the community. You need to know where your baseline. If you don’t know where you are starting from, you don’t know which road to take.


First they assess where we are today with the facilities - standards, codes to make uptodate


Physical Needs assessment


A lot of buildings are old and need to be changed and there are no plans or pictures anymore. Can make a model of the buildings to see to help identify existing conditions. It can identify stuff to help to find age and so forth. They do full assessments on the buildings that have the greatest needs. Other schools they do a simple one that they are not going to majorly address. Places the needs into different categories, health and safety, priority and the cost for each. Money for urgent issues first, then divate the other money for near future projects and then further out projects.


Functional Needs Assessment


This measures the value of the building. Compares to state and what we need. What is importance? What is the space there for? What is the function of each room? Ability to support curriculum and instructions. Break this down to 6 factors.


Scenarios


What are the What if scenarios after you have done the assessments. There will be tears and frustration, sometimes the loudest idea gets pushed, but it is not always the best. They use financial models. Looks at the costs first and compares to functional suitability. When you look at both it looks for the greatest return for the problem. This reduces emotion. They collect data about the schools. Asks questions and put data into the program and compare life cycle costs and educational instruction.


Looks at other schools - St. Joseph MO. Starts to talk, then...


Robberts - I have seen your numbers - our middle schools are new so I am not on the same page. Elementary and the high school are not new, what schools are we looking at? ICAT - we looked at the three (Aldo, Ed Stone, and BHS). Coen - We are sitting very pretty in our district. Kesterke has a great plan, when you listen to hired people. Robberts - why looking at the middle schools? Coen - They could be a 5-6 school. Bross - we may need to relook at what you have given us. JMEC is not on there. ICAT - we can look at a different school as other purpose. We can look at the other buildings for you too. Board confused why the middle school chosen, talking about the age of the other buildings for a few moments. Robberts - Grimes was remodeled 06-7ish. Corse is oldest, then BH, Sunnyside, Grimes, then NH


Back to scenarios - St Joseph


Historic town, don’t want to lose that- what to do? People there gravitated towards Scenario 6 - retiring 6 buildings then building 3 new buildings. There were people who wanted to contribute to the solution, but didn’t participate into the day to day function of the schools. The ICAT gives a status quo as a baseline of the cost to construction compared to function. 90% is 21st century level building. 70-90% is relatively new, 50-70% is borderline, need comprehensive upgrades. 30-50% - poor, using more resources than getting out of the building. 30% or less should be gone. Then they give a lifecycle cost over 30 years with details on what year do they need to replace stuff, cost of replacement of stuff and estimate when things need to be done for them. Want to make sure we look at older buildings to see the greater financial info. Look at districts historical data to drive numbers. Look for changes in transportation, and other stuff . Cost benefit ratio for the baseline. Use this when they come up with their scenarios to see compare to the other scenarios that come up. Basically it is the cost if they do nothing.


Charles City


50% occupancy - should they merge or make two buildings? 2 campus scenario was worse than status quo (than doing nothing).


They do this for 30 years so it is not too speculative, but shorter is not long enough. Engagement process needs to be transparent, Uses data to make informed decisions. We need to give good information, have citizen leadership, and planning principles (what is our desired outcome - and compare what if scenario to this). Quantitative and Qualitative (left brain vs right brain) battle - Where do we go from here?


Assessment BHS, AL and ES - we can choose different building. Need 4 to 6 weeks. Physical and functional assessments go on at the same time. They sit down for 4 hours with principle, curriculum people, and building engineer people. Could do this early June. Scenario discussion starts with district goals, then come scenarios. Doing nothing is an option. One of the biggest issues is utilization and capacity. At the high school they would look at every class and every room. Look at educational capacity, then color code - red means not used, green is used , orange is middle (showed a spreadsheet of another district). Coen - Can this data be used for add-ons? Science Wing - do we rebuild and cause a lot of red (or unused space)? Bross - capacity based on functionality? And this is the first step? Hired people - yes. ICAT - When the board has 2-3 real scenarios that show promise, then we begin phase 2. If the board does not have the time to ask questions, it all goes out of order and doesn’t work. Board makes the decisions, then the public needs to be involved.


Phase 2 - broader community engagement. They create a road map and then let the district decide. Many districts are concern when they go with this project that they might lose relationships with existing architects. Strength of this approach - identifies optimal configuration, data driven, creates road map, builds community support, helps districts move forward. Hatteberg or Brueck - Do you help with the engagement? ICAT - yep, that is part of our job. We have done a lot of smaller district and have brought smaller districts together. Coen - Harmony school district is gone, Mt Union city is gone. Robberts - I don’t know if I would focus on the middle schools, BHS needs it, maybe JMEC move, shouldn't we look at all five elementary schools to make sure we are using them functionally,? Admin building is it modern and functional?. James madison has stuff, but could we move it. Can these funds not come from the general fund so we can keep teachers? -Greg - yes something in his soft voice. Robberts - sweet! - Should we look at the elementaries, BHS and JMEC? ICAT - There will be a smaller increase to do the functional part of of all the buildings. Someone - Do we look at JMEC? Kendell - We did an evaluation years ago and found out moving to JMEC would be costly compared to keeping it ($11 million ?). Coen - when you look at his sheet with % maybe we should do the whole evaluation on all buildings. ICAT - maybe we just do the physical assessment on the oldest building and functional on the rest. Coen asked Kesterke to come up and asked which elementaries he would check. Kesterke - Check NH, Corse and… Board - Why NH? Kesterke - Mudjacking on NH. It was on a ravine and they didn't compact the foundation right doors are already not closing right. Corse was a remodeled building. Courtney, - Why don’t you do them all? Yeahs around. Robberts - JMEC remodel idea in 2011-12 came from a different superintendent was $11 million and fancy and Robberts was shocked by that. Brueck - Do an assessment on all and then find where the admin could go. Someone brought up water issue on ES. Kesterke - have a bandaid on it right now, but it is working, we know the problem and will fix it in the next few years. Robberts - Is it okay to get a new proposal after talking to Kesterke and then make a special meeting to meet sooner than June 18? Greg- Functional check on Aldo and other schools. Robberts and other joking when trying to meet. Meet at Maintenance building - 2:15 on June 3rd before graduation to approve cost for doing all the evaluation (current proposal is at $32,000). Look at the proposal, see if we will take it (can go with other people, but ICAT has a discount for some reason), then the 4-6 weeks for the assessment, and sit down with the team. Maybe get done by July 16, but if not have a special meeting. We need to do this soon so we can get all people involved as soon as possible to move forward with this. Bross - First change needs to happen by August 2019, we are losing the money next year we need to do the change as soon as possible. Hatteberg - we need to involve the public and we need to be transparent. Robberts - The plan - 2:15 - Around bracewell or BHS if ran with rain, maybe accept proposal. Let me know if you are going to be gone so we can try to have all of you involved. Kendall- thank you public for coming out.




Side conversation after - A few people were confused on how the district got the max capacity numbers. They thought Sunnyside and Black Hawk were built for 500.