A community group is urging Orcas School to look at its failing buildings in a new light.
“Given the economic climate, we wanted to consider other possibilities,” said David Kau, an architect who participated in a recent team examination by local contractors of the 1980 middle and high school buildings.
This past spring, a community group called “A Way Forward for Orcas Schools” held a series of meetings about the school campus. One of its actions was to gather a team of island contractors, engineers, and architects to review the existing studies and school facilities.
In the report, which was presented to the school board last week, the construction professionals were unanimous in their conclusion that “the 1980 buildings in their current state are deficient with respect to heating and ventilation, seismic, ADA requirements, moisture intrusion, fire suppression and fire walls, roof details, and energy consumption.”
“I urge the board to consider this report from the local contractors,” said Fred Klein, who spearheaded the Way Forward effort. “I realize it might be viewed as a step backward by the board, but I think it will be fruitful.”
After two failed bonds, the school is looking at scaling down its original multi-million dollar campus project. Way Forward is advocating the help of Butch Reifert, an Orcas resident and managing partner of the architectural firm Mahlum in Seattle. He is offering to conduct a new study for the school that would examine several options: modernizing the current structures, tearing down the buildings but using the same foundation, or starting entirely from scratch.
Sierra-Martin Architects, along with Mahlum, completed a study in 2009, which gave cost comparisons of renovation vs. demolition. There was only a few million dollars’ difference. That report served as the basis for the original bond proposals: $35 million and then $27 million.
Reifert is offering his services to the school for $12,000 to $15,000, a price that contractor Clyde Duke told the board was “a gift.”
Kau told board members it would be a “broad brush report.”
“It won’t necessarily generate a new bond number, but it will point us in the right direction,” he said. “In the best world, we’d get a bond number from this. But it’s not necessarily going to happen.”
Board chair Janet Brownell applauded the Way Forward committee for its report, but said, “We don’t have the money.”
Compounding the district’s reluctance to spend cash is the recently approved state budget that cuts funding for alternative learning education. For more information on the school budget, see the sidebar below. Due to that uncertainty, the school board did not want to allocate any additional funds for building reports at this time.
“I’m reluctant to spend the money before we know the final numbers from Keith,” Jim Sullivan said.
All four board members in attendance agreed it was “conceptually a great idea” and that the “price was lower than we expected.”
They are hopeful someone in the community will step up to help pay for the study, but if not, the board will make a decision at its budget hearing on July 13 at 5:30 p.m. in the school library about using funds from its capital projects fund to pay Mahlum.
Another possibility is using extra money from the school’s current elementary school repair project. In February, the district was offered $900,000 in federal grant monies to make repairs to the elementary school. To secure the grant, they had to provide matching funds to complete the project, which includes a new HVAC system, motion control heat and lighting, and replacing the galvanized plumbing with copper pipes. In May, the board signed on to acquire $900,000 in non-voted debt. The board’s plan is to put a small capital levy before voters to pay back the money. An election date has not yet been set.
University Mechanical Contractors, an energy performance contracting business in Seattle, has been serving as the project manager. Orcas construction firm Terra Firma Northwest and electrician Kevin Loomis are also participating.
The work is being done this summer, and if all goes as planned, there may be extra money left over, which could go towards the Mahlum study.
“It will be good to have Mahlum take a fresh look at the renovation possibilities,” Brownell told the Sounder. “They are well acquainted with the education specs and will give us a well thought out opinion as to how, or if, a renovation will work. We are all thrilled with the work the Way Forward group has done. And hope we are at a new beginning with regard to our facilities and come up with a collective idea about where to go from here.”
ALE funding cuts
School business manager Keith Whitaker says he is anticipating a 15% reduction in state funding to the OASIS program.
“This is not entirely confirmed, as the legislation authorized the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to determine the reduction percentage, program by program, between 10 and 20 percent, as long as the overall net reduction statewide was 15 percent,” he told the Sounder. “OSPI put out a pivot table showing a 15% reduction to our ALE funding prior to the passage of the bills, and I do not really expect there to be any change from that.”
Towards the end of every school year, the board has to approve a Minimum Education Plan, which outlines the budget for the coming year. Because enrollment is not set in stone at that point, a handful of teachers receive a Reduction in Force (RIF) notice. It means their job is put on hold until final enrollment and budget numbers are known.
This spring, 14 teachers (9.44 full time equivalent), predominately in the OASIS program, were RIF’d. As of today, the school is planning to bring back about half – or $310,180 worth. The school is creating a 2011-12 budget with an enrollment number of 624, which Whitaker called “safe” until the school knows how OASIS students will react to the funding cuts.
“It will take quite a bit of number crunching to know where we stand,” said superintendent Barbara Kline. “We won’t even know the OASIS enrollment until August.”
