North Penn votes ahead district-wide facilities study

A major update to the North Penn School District’s to-do list could be in the works soon.

School board members have voted ahead a facilities study looking at all district schools, offices and more.

“There was a field study years ago, and we also had a study done on our secondary schools: the middle schools and the high school, but we have not done the full district,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.

In recent years, district facilities staff have developed a long-term capital project list of needed infrastructure repairs and upgrades at every district building, and rated each project based on several criteria including the safety impact, physical condition, educational impact, age and life expectancy of the parts or system in question. Each summer staff typically recommend smaller projects based off of that list, which are typically paid for by the district’s capital fund; that fund is typically replenished each year by the year-to-year operating surplus once annual financial audits are finalized.

Items on that list within North Penn High School have been set aside due to the $260 million renovation project that started this summer, and in recent years staff have fielded requests from residents and staff to tackle smaller projects across the rest of the district, including at three middle schools, 13 elementary schools, the district’s central office on Hancock Street and several other sites.

That list was the subject of an item discussed by the board’s facilities and operations committee in late August, then the finance committee last week: a request from staff to advertise an RFP seeking a district-wide facilities condition study to update that to-do list.

“The last time we had a full district-wide facilities assessment was in 2001. This would reset the entire 10-year capital plan,” said Director of Facilities and Operations Bill Slawter.

“The stuff that’s a high priority stays a high priority, because it’s already been identified, but it would be a much more granular list than what we have, identifying many more items that should be looked at and addressed,” he said.

During the same meeting, Slawter and district CFO Tara Houser debuted a new format for that long-term capital list, with projects now sorted by school or facility and showing total estimated price tags for each building, rather than the prior format that had ranked items by priority.

“The numbers overall are the same, but we’re choosing to show this based on the buildings, and not the individual priorities,” said Slawter.

In that updated list, the largest single school with projects estimated is far is a $42 million line item for Penndale Middle School in Lansdale which last had its building control systems updated and major renovations in 1996, followed by roughly $17 million each for upgrades to Pennfield and Pennbrook middle schools that date back to 2007 and ’05 respectively, $10 million for Walton Farm Elementary which was last renovated in 1994, and an $8 million estimate for the district offices, with major modifications there last done in 1990. Adding the $260 million high school project to the just under $144 million for the rest of the district yields a total bottom line estimate of $403 million in total capital projects needed as of August, subject to change based on the facilities study.

“We did add a couple of items we had talked about: the intercom at the ESC, some masonry repairs at York Avenue Elementary School, and the only item that’s different, ‘Overall building control systems,’ that is a district-wide initiative so it sits by itself. That’s ongoing right now,” Slawter said, with an estimated $3.8 million price tag.

Board President Cathy McMurtrie asked if the reconfigured list was still based on the rating system developed by staff, with one-to-five ratings developed by staff. Slawter said that rating system hasn’t changed yet, but that’s what the study may modify. McMurtrie said she thought sorting by school was a “much easier view,” and asked how it would be updated before the full study is done.

“That’s identified in the column ‘2025’, the items we’ve identified as stuff that we’d be working on right away. We still have that (priority) list, that can be included,” Slawter said, and Houser added that the study “most likely will significantly change some of these numbers, and some of those ratings.”

McMurtrie then asked for a status update on the 2025 items, including minor projects at two middle and three elementary schools, and Slater said those were all either in progress, out to bid, or under design as of late August. Board member Juliane Ramic asked if staff could add more detail to the document about those ongoing projects and their timeline, and Slawter said he’d give updates at future meetings nad add that info to the spreadsheet.

After the facilities and operations committee voted that request ahead in late August, the board’s finance committee did the same on Sept. 9, with the superintendent and CFO summarizing the reasons why it’s needed. The request for proposals would likely be publicized by the end of September and take roughly two months to secure proposals from interested firms, Houser said, meaning board action to award a contract could happen in November.

“This is just to tell us where our deficiencies are, and to basically score our buildings, and which ones need critical attention, which ones can wait five years, which ones needed it last year,” Houser said.

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“I think it’s critical to get a point-in-time view of all of your facilities that need it, at the same time, so you have that planning in place. It’s about finding out about the conditions of  our buildings, but it’s also about being able to plan,” she said.

Total costs are likely to reach $150,000 to $200,000 with exact figures to be known once the proposals come back, the CFO said.

Board member Kunbi Rudnick asked if the study could break out parts of the middle and high school and stadium that were recently upgraded or studied, and Slawter said the recent studies and work would be shared: “We would take bits and pieces of the stadium, not necessarily the whole thing,” he said.

The study results could also be used to make long term plans, the superintendent added, since recent renovations from the 2000s and 2010s may need to be revisited as the 2030s approach.

“It’s not ‘What needs to be done right now?’ It’s, let’s take a look at things and plan for 10 or 15 years, for our 22 facilities that we have. There might be things that were renovated fairly recently: Hatfield Elementary, Montgomery Elementary — even Knapp (Elementary) was four or five years ago now — what’s going to need to be done there?” said Bauer.

“We don’t leave our homes unattended to for 20 years, we can’t do the same for our buildings,” he said.

During that same meeting, Houser also requested the board authorize a demographic and enrolment study meant to take a snapshot of student enrollment figures, which Bauer said could help project which schools will have space and which may need more.

“Do we have enough capacity across the school district, to handle all of the students? Yes. Do we have enough capacity in each building, to handle those who are currently zoned thre? No, not without some adjustments,” he said.

“There are pockets, across the district. You might have a really large kindergarten and first grade at Knapp, for example, and you ride that wave through, and everything’s fine at Knapp. The whole purpose of an enrolment study is to say, is this a wave, or is this a trend?” Bauer said.

North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. Thursday at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock Street. for more information visit www.NPenn.org.

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