Schools in poor shape

Over half the money — 57 percent — is needed to keep the aging high school functional.

The assessment done last August only looked at what was available on visible inspection, and did not do any internal assessments of systems, noted Don Carter, director of facilities for D21.

“That’s just what we can see,” he said of the estimated repairs. “That’s $22 million plus what you cannot see.”

“If we look at each of our buildings, we’re pretty good in terms of kind of hanging in there for the next year, but as you look out five years, it starts getting really tough on a majority of our buildings, except of course for the middle school,” Armstrong told the Chronicle earlier.

She said it was “scary to think, because they didn’t go in depth, how much more they could find.”

Armstrong said the district has about $500,000 a year “just to keep things going. And a lot of the money we have budgeted goes for heat, light, water, those kinds of things. We don’t have a big capital improvement budget. We just don’t. We don’t have that much money.”

In the facilities assessment, “what we really learned is we’re kind of going backwards no matter how hard we’re trying just because of the age of those facilities,” Armstrong said.

The assessment report was first discussed at a facilities meeting Jan. 10. The district is holding a series of such meetings in the coming months as it contemplates seeking voter approval perhaps as early as May for a 50-year “bond authority” to build multiple schools.

In a bond authority, taxes would only be levied on property owners as each new school was built. Several other districts have passed long-term bonding authority.

The next facilities meeting is set for Jan. 31 and its main focus will be what teaching and learning will look like in the new facilities.

The middle school, at 16 years old and by far the newest facility in the district, is the only building expected to still be in good condition in five years. The other five facilities will be in poor to extremely poor condition.

Chenowith Elementary is 64 years old, Colonel Wright Elementary is 93 years old, Dry Hollow Elementary is 57 years old, the high school is 77 years old.

Over the winter break, the district got a taste of what it’s like to repair aging systems when the main electrical panel at Dry Hollow went on the fritz.

The system dates from the late ‘50s, and no parts are manufactured for it anymore, Carter said.

“They haven’t made these parts in 30 years, so we had to source one from Ebay, a used one,” he said.

The assessment was presented on Jan. 10, by Richard Higgins of BLRB Architects to a hardy crowd of 20 who braved snowy conditions to attend a facilities meeting.

The assessment evaluated the architectural, mechanical and electrical systems of each of the district’s six buildings.

Over 785 individual systems were catalogued, listing their remaining useful life and estimated replacement cost.

The systems are for the most part currently in adequate working condition, an executive summary stated.

Of those systems, however, 305 were pegged for needing renewal in the next six years.

Many systems are approaching, or beyond, the end of their expected lifetimes and should be scheduled for replacement to gain more efficiency, reliability and availability of spare parts, the analysis noted.