Big Changes Coming to East Penn
The options for dealing with space in the district could cost $247-$325 million.
Last week's East Penn school board meeting unveiled options for potentially huge changes to the school district. Today I'm summarizing the main points of the presentation that lasted well over 3 hours and included 76 slides of information.
The Problem
The district no longer has enough room in its existing schools. Several buildings are either at or over capacity. And a recent outside demographic study predicts the district will have approximately 450 more students ten years from now than it does today.
The district's educational programs are also limited by a lack of modern learning spaces, according to an outside facilities study conducted two years ago.
Proposed Solutions
Grades K-8
Two potential solutions were proposed for addressing these problems in kindergarten through eighth grade. The first would be to change the boundaries that determine which students go to which elementary and middle schools, build additions to Alburtis and Lincoln elementary schools, and renovate Eyer middle school. The estimated cost of this solution is approximately $61 million. The district administration sees the advantages of this option to include keeping the overall number of students in different buildings and grade cohorts smaller compared to other options, and maintaining the same number of transitions between schools that most students experience now.
The alternative solution would be to change the elementary schools so they only took students from kindergarten through fourth grade (instead of through fifth grade as they currently do), have ALL district fifth and sixth graders go to Eyer middle school, and ALL seventh and eighth graders go to Lower Macungie middle school. This solution would involve additions and renovations to both middle schools and has an estimated total cost of $66 million. The district administration sees the advantages of this option to include a greater ability to target specific age groups with educational programs, and greater consistence of instruction in each grade, in special education services, and in science labs and other educational spaces for students in grades 5-8. A survey of parents, teachers, staff, and community residents taken before the cost estimates were available show that about 60% preferred this "realignment" model to the "redistricting" model in the first solution, and about 77% said this option might, or definitely would, provide an "improved student experience."
High School (Grades 9-12)
The presentation also included three potential solutions for the same problems of space and modern facilities at the high school. The first involves an addition and substantial renovations to the current high school building that would increase the total building capacity from 2,770 to 3,200 students, and include a new gym that could seat 3,000. The cost would be approximately $186 million.
The second is to build an entirely new high school on the site of the current one. This would be accomplished by building on the current athletic fields, parking, and open space, then tearing down the existing building and replacing it with new athletic facilities and parking. The cost would be approximately $250 million.
The third high school option is to build an entirely new school on vacant property at the intersection of Route 100 and Sauerkraut Lane. The property is already owned by the district and is a large 76-acres, but not all of it can be built on. This new school would have a capacity of about 3,000 students, include a new athletic facilities and parking, and cost $259 million. It would replace the current high school, which would then be either repurposed or sold.
The Financing
Whatever options are chosen, they would be paid for by borrowing money, and would require tax increases of between 1.6%-3.6% for each of the next 7-8 years in order to finance the loan payments. These increases would be in addition to the ordinary tax increases necessary due to inflation of ordinary operating costs of the district (which have averaged about 2% over the last decade).
Some Questions
I don't have a strong opinion about these options yet, because I'm still reading the details (and there are a LOT of details), asking questions, and talking to others in the community. But I do have some initial thoughts and questions about the options presented to the public that I thought I would share:
I have some skepticism about how much weight should be given to the numbers in the demographic study. The method they used to calculate them misses a lot of factors that may be important in the coming years. And even small changes in the estimates could change the results from modest net gain in students to a small net drop in students in the district.
The presentation was called a "Facilities Plan," but they included hiring a substantial number of new teachers too that are not related to space or facilities issues. It wasn't clear to me from the presentation exactly how many, but it's at least sixteen. Many of these positions already exist on a short-term basis, paid for by temporary pandemic relief money. I would like to see the costs of new personnel, hired to improve education in the district, separated from the costs of new facilities, because a) these costs address problems other than space, and b) new personnel create annual, recurring costs while new buildings and renovations are one-time costs.
All of the presented scenarios are very expensive, with totals between $247 million and $325 million, depending on which K-8 and high school solutions are chosen. For perspective, the total annual budget of the district this year is $188 million. I think it would be useful to see at least one option that is less ambitious, including a clear-eyed account of what sacrifices would be required and what needs not met by a lower cost solution.
There were repeated references to "modern" and "state of the art" facilities with the various solutions, but details of what this means wasn't provided. I would like to hear more specifics about what kinds of educational approaches or activities are difficult or impossible in the facilities we have right now, and how "state of the art" spaces would enable or improve such educational experiences. In other words, what would the community and its kids be getting educationally from "modern" facilities, beyond rooms that are nice and new?
I think there need to be tough discussions ahead regarding the future of the district given the high cost of the proposed solutions and the substantial changes to the district they entail. But I'm glad this process is happening now, before it's too late and we are left with worse-- and potentially even more expensive-- alternatives.
Presentations like this, and the momentous changes that will come out of them, underscore how important it is that we have the most qualified school board members making decisions on our behalf, focused entirely on our local community.
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Thank you for this, Ziad. I wasn't able to make this meeting. I have forwarded it to several people.
Dr. Ziad,
I agree with all of you 5 closing questions about the plan presented last week. I’ll comment on your thoughts instead of regurgitating the comments that I sent already to the board and administration last week on the excellent presentation.
1) On demographics, I have questions about how the 500+- increase of total enrollment jives with the 500+- capacity increase prosed for the HS and the 600+- capacity gained by transferring 5th grade in to one of the MS. Maybe it’s the same kids at different points in time. And that doesn’t even question the reliability of the population projects as you wondered.
2) As you properly point out, this is not just a facilities plan, since they clearly said many times that it was intended to be a comprehensive plan, including the staffing both for growth and for the other items you mentioned. Some of those items might have ordinarily been included in future “district priorities”, so that might reduce the future 2-3% increases if they are already included in this plan.
3) Pages #75 & 76 show a financial plan that suggests that a $60 million MS plan might be only barely affordable under Act 1. If that’s true, a $250 HS renovation or relocation anywhere seems almost out of the question. Thus, your suggestion of an alternative scaled back plan makes sense.
4) The presentation covered many details about many facility deficiencies and upgrades so I won’t go into those except to say like you did that they should be better understood, evaluated, and prioritized, especially with our questions about affordability we both express.
5) Like you, I’m glad they’re looking at this now. They probably should have done more around 2015-16, when I warned the board that they should try to conserve the $6 million of debt service funding which was expiring then. But then, Mr Saul's excellent spreadsheet was just coming into existence, so the wisdom from it was new.
However, sadly, they may be rushing into a decision by trying to have a vote about something in November before the existing school board dissolves with two members retiring, never mind what happens in this election.