(The following is an editorial submission from Jessie Bradica, a Republican candidate for North Penn School Board Director.)
Days before the start of school, the North Penn School Board (NPSB) celebrated the completion of an $8.2 million football stadium renovation. If you visit the newly renovated Crawford Stadium, you will be impressed. It is beautiful.
You might also think that other North Penn School District (NPSD) facilities, including classrooms, are on a similar level of 21st Century accommodations. They most certainly are not. Masked middle school students have been forced to endure high temperatures inside their un-airconditioned classrooms upon returning to the 2021-22 North Penn school year.
Admittedly, both the Crawford Stadium renovations and air conditioning have long been discussed as major facilities issues to be addressed in the district. The current school board is accountable for moving the stadium to the forefront of capital improvement projects, while pushing air conditioning in middle schools towards the end of a 10-year plan. The recent high temperatures and mask mandates inside school buildings have brought the air conditioning debate back to the forefront of issues, which has led to some head scratching as to why investment into an athletic facility took precedence over the investment into an academic facility.
In an effort to curb pressure from the community, the school board added “A/C in Middle Schools” to the agenda of the August Facilities Meeting. The board used this time along with administration, to discuss the factors of costs, available funds, and efficiencies in defending their timeline for installing air conditioning in middle schools, and if they should move the project forward.
In discussing costs, the school board used a $30 million estimate from 2016 that combined the costs of adding air conditioning to all three middle schools. They concluded that an $8.2 million project was much more doable than a $30 million project. However, the board refused to address each middle school as its own project, and ignored the air conditioning cost estimates from their own 10-year project plan, which was approved in 2019. The estimated costs of air conditioning additions, according to their plan, are listed as just over $7 million each for Pennbrook and Pennfield. Penndale’s upgrade is estimated to be over $11 million. The board sought confirmation from administration that combining HVAC work across middle schools and other projects would lead to synergy and cut costs, but instead, they received a recommendation that HVAC upgrades to each middle school should be done as separate contracts and at separate intervals.
Bottom line: according to their own plan, the cost of adding air conditioning to either Pennfield or Pennbrook is less than the cost of the new stadium.
The committee also confirmed that the stadium renovations were funded by available money in the Capital Reserve Fund. But how did that money get into the Capital Reserve Fund?
While reviewing the minutes of previous action meetings in North Penn’s Board Docs, I found that on Oct. 18, 2018, after voting to raise taxes a full percentage point above the Act 1 Index in May 2018 to claim exceptions for increased special education expenses and a structural deficit, the board voted to move a $3.6 million dollar budget surplus from the 2017-2018 school year to the Capital Reserve Fund. They voted to do the same thing on Oct. 17, 2019, when they moved another $3.3 million surplus to the same fund, bringing the balance to nearly $9 million. On Dec. 12, 2019, the board voted unanimously to award $8.1 million in bids to begin the construction of Crawford Stadium, thereby draining the majority of the Capital Reserve Fund.
Again, that $8.1 million, was more than the estimated cost for air conditioning in one of our middle schools.
Not only did the board fail to use Capital Reserve Funds for upgrading the HVAC of one middle school, they have also failed to consider using any of the $17 million in Federal Stimulus COVID-19 money awarded to NPSD’s General Fund to accomplish this same goal.
On April 13, 2021, a Federal Stimulus Presentation was given to the board. That presentation showed North Penn has over $10 million unallocated/unspent funds remaining. The ARP ESSERS Guidebook from the PA Department of Education lists HVAC upgrades on page 18, as one option for the allocation of funds. If you add the money that was used for the stadium to the remaining stimulus money, NPSD could have added air conditioning in two out of three middle schools.
I keep mentioning Pennfield and Pennbrook — and not Penndale — for a reason. During the conversation around efficiency, there was an admission that there is no plan for changes to building grade levels with the addition of the 9th Grade Center. Changes to the structure of grade levels in buildings affects the future of Penndale, and whether or not it will be demolished. Think about that for a moment: plans for and completion of a newly renovated stadium, plans for a high school renovation and ninth grade center construction, and plans for a health clinic, have all been placed ahead of a plan for the structure of grade levels inside NPSD buildings.
Grade level planning within a school district is the top tier of planning — the master plan. Without a master plan, everything can be considered as piecemeal or inefficient. Furthermore, if the goal is to achieve efficiencies and cost economies by not engaging in piecemeal projects, then why didn’t the football stadium get incorporated into the upcoming major high school campus project? Would the stadium have cost less? Even if the stadium cost was the same, why didn’t it wait? How do you justify 21st Century accommodations for extra-curricular activities before 21st Century accommodations for learning?
With the absence of critical questions and balanced perspectives, the consensus at the end of August’s Facilities Meeting was to “stay the course” with the current plan to install air conditioning in middle schools sometime in the years 2025 through 2029.
Whether you agree with the current board’s decisions or not, it is now time to look forward as a community, and make your voices heard with your vote on Nov. 2. You have the opportunity to bring back balance to the current 9/9 board seats filled by one party.
If I have the opportunity to serve this community as a school board director, I vow to fight to reprioritize spending by improving the academic learning environments over special interest projects. Day one, I will push for a master plan that includes grade level restructuring, so we have the necessary information to proceed with capital improvement projects in North Penn. I commit to be fiscally responsible with your hard-earned tax dollars, and to fight to stay under the Act 1 Index to the best of my ability.
Coming together as a community is extremely important to me — it is why my running mates and I chose “North Penn Stronger Together” as our campaign slogan. As parents, taxpayers, and constituents, we have witnessed divisive rhetoric and polarizing decisions made by the current NPSD board leadership. Board directors should never speak about our community in terms of us vs them. Directors are responsible to all of the constituents of North Penn, despite their support or vote. We must work hard to make the best policies that help our district and community unite and thrive as a whole.
More importantly, we have to establish our students as the top priority and recommit to a premier educational environment that will facilitate brighter and stronger futures. We have watched North Penn decline in state rankings in multiple areas over the past four years. It is time to correct the course and make North Penn Stronger Together.
