North Penn CFO Says Second High School Considered, But Too Costly

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

A map of painted tiles inside the main lobby shows the various classroom “pods” throughout North Penn High School.

District officials gave a glimpse on Tuesday night into an aspect of the planned North Penn High School renovations that’s seen little discussion so far.

Has the district looked at building a second high school somewhere in the district instead of a major renovation of the current one?

"We actually looked at this as part of our option study that we were doing last year, and the cost for a second high school was prohibitive: it was somewhere in the $500 million to $600 million range,” said district CFO Steve Skrocki.

Throughout the year, district officials have made the case to the school board and public for a major renovation to the current high school, which currently holds roughly 3,000 students, and parts of which date back to the early 1970s.

In October the school board voted to authorize a voter referendum, to be held on Jan. 16, 2024, asking for taxpayer approval to exceed the state-set Act 1 index of a tax increase permitted each year to fund the borrowing of $97 million in debt needed to move ninth graders from the district’s three middle schools to the high school.

If the referendum passes, a $403 million renovation would add classroom space for 1,000 ninth graders to move to the high school complex, and if the referendum fails, district officials have proposed a $236 million renovation meant to update the utilities through the school, but with minimal expansion.

In a public forum hosted by administrators on Tuesday night, district officials spent over two hours answering questions, outlining the needs and problems in the current building, the reasons for moving ninth grade to the campus, and showed renderings of a potential new wing of the building, which could be built first and then used as swing space as other areas of the school are renovated.

During that discussion, one resident asked a question that dates back nearly three decades: had the district taken another look at building a second high school?

"Looking at the growth of the community, are we being short sighted? Should we really have two high schools? This high school’s getting way too large, for this many people,” said the resident, who was not identified during the meeting.

In the mid- to late-1990s, district officials held similar talks about expanding the high school, which held 2,600 students at the time, or adding a second high school elsewhere in the district.

According to archives of The Reporter and the high school’s Knight Crier newspaper and NPTV channel, the district owned property on Kenas Road in Montgomery Township and discussed a second school on that site, but then-school board members voted against the idea due to concerns about high taxes and whether the two schools would have the same facilities. That debate was captured in a documentary at the time, according to the Knight Crier, and board members ultimately chose to expand the current high school by adding the 90,000-square-foot K-Pod addition, which broke ground in 1997 and was completed in 1999.

Juan Baughn, high school principal at the time, was shown during the forum in a 1996 NPTV video saying there were "built-in bottlenecks” in the school, "relative to traffic. We need to do something about getting from A-Pod to H-Pod.” Baughn was quoted in the Knight Crier in June looking back on the arguments in favor of a second high school: "I just felt so strongly… that there’s no way you don’t build the second school. This community was going to grow. It was [becoming] more diverse, and I just felt that the opportunities would be lessened for some of the same people that we were trying to help the most… I made a stance that when the building gets more than 2,600 students, I have to go… I just didn’t feel that I wanted to be a manager; I wanted to be a principal.”

Could a similar conversation, about a second high school, happen again? Skrocki and Superintendent Todd Bauer addressed the question during Tuesday night’s forum, saying the question of a second high school did come up in early talks, but that high price tag made it a nonstarter.

"There was also another issue about site acquisition, to get the proper acreage to build a second high school. We’re having trouble finding 15 acres for a transportation facility; imagine 40 to 50 acres for a new high school, a second high school,” Skrocki said.

"So the exorbitant price tag of $500 million to $600 million, plus site acquisition concerns, we pretty much moved on past that option pretty quickly,” he said.

Bauer added that he had received that same question from residents who toured the existing school Tuesday, and said any new high school would have to have student parking, athletic fields, and other amenities that a smaller school like an elementary school would not — without fixing the failing 1970s-era infrastructure at the current school.

"Not only would it be somewhere in between $500 (million) and $600 (million) to acquire the land and build a new high school — this high school would still need the repairs. So you’re still talking about that $236 (million) number, if it is a basic renovation of the current structure,” he said.

"So the $97 million that would be above the Act 1 index: we’re talking $500 million more than that, which is just not an option at this stage,” Bauer said.

North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on Dec. 12 and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 6 p.m. on Dec. 18; for more information visit www.NPenn.org and for more on the proposed renovations visit www.ReimagineNPHS.com.

This article appears courtesy of a content share agreement between North Penn Now and The Reporter. To read more stories like this, visit www.thereporteronline.com.