Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Public Schools, FY 2027 - FY 2032 Capital Budget Public Hearing & Work Session, Monday, November 10, 2025

Date: Monday, November 10, 2025
Place: LCPS Administration Building / School Board Room, Ashburn, Virginia
Length: 1h 27m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1134060395?rel=0

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-12. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:47] evening I call to order this November 10th 2025 Loudoun County School Board meeting budget public hearing and work session actually at this time we'll go ahead and start with disclosures and I'll start as a member of the Loudoun County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board into the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees specifically as a school board member I'm eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS

[00:01:24] employee these benefits however affect thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interest may also be affected of which I am included I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest this disclosure will this closure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years I don't see Ms. Chandler and I don't see Ms. Donahue. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you Madam Chair. As a member of the Lyon County School Board I make the following disclosure to the school board and the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS

[00:02:02] employees. Specifically as a school board member I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits however affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public's interest.

[00:02:23] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Griffiths. Mr. Streffi. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits in any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I'm eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively

[00:03:00] and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Mr. Streffi. Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and/or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees. Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits

[00:03:37] In addition, oh, I'm sorry, as an LCPS employee, in addition, as a former LCPS employee, I, as well as my spouse, receive Medicare Advantage insurance benefits through LCPS. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees, well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which my spouse and I are included.

[00:04:02] I can and will participate fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. Ms. Chernoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits and any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:04:30] Specifically, as a school board member, I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee. These benefits, however, affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected, of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest.

[00:04:48] This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you, Ms. Chernoff. We will move on to item three, staff briefing. Superintendents recommended FY 2027 and FY 2032, capital budget presented by Kevin Lewis, our chief operation officer.

[00:05:07] I think I see Mr. Bryan Stocks there, too. Oh, wait, before we do that, Ms. Chandler, do you think you are able to, like, go ahead and do your disclosure quickly? Sorry, I just want to, I'll forget otherwise. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:05:27] As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with an item on tonight's agenda regarding the budget and or health insurance and related benefits for any other discussion that may include or affect benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:05:44] Specifically as a school board member I am eligible to receive health insurance and related benefits as an LCPS employee These benefits however affect thousands of employees well in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may also be affected Of which I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you Thank you, Ms. Chandler. Okay. Mr. Stocks and Mr. Lewis. It's all you Thank you, Chair Mansfield, members of the board, Dr. Spence.

[00:06:18] Tonight we're here for the November 10th briefing of the CIP. As we go through this, there's a number of updates. We have quite a bit of information, and I'll be happy to run through those slides and then take questions at the end, or if it's a work session, if you have some burning questions, we'll take your lead on that.

[00:06:40] So we'll talk about the Q&A, which at this point we've only had one question from the public and let's talk and we've responded to that and so we don't have a packet of Q&A for you I know that we expect some questions tonight and each work session we'll come back with answers to those in writing I will have a budget update and we'll talk a little bit about school priorities a school modernization project in the 2027 funded projects we're going to go through a number of the projects this evening so starting on the updates this slide is

[00:07:13] Here is a summary you've seen a slide that's similar to this in the past I will take this opportunity to advise the board that we have found an error in our spreadsheet and so along with any other problem we come with a solution as well so I'll go through that as we as we go forward this evening essentially what we did is as you know over over time the capital budgets the CIP is funded separately from the CAP the capital asset preservation plan and essentially there's short story is we included the revenue twice in our thing for the cap and so

[00:07:48] that resulted in a in an error and you can see here on this slide is a short version of the the funding sheet that we presented last time and it's in your folder tonight on that first white line you see the FY 25 to 30 Loudoun County adopted capital budget that's the Board of Supervisors funding and essentially last year the totals for that funding for the capital projects excluding the cap projects was seventy one point two million dollars we had presented to you the second line on FY 27 to 32 superintendents recommended capital

[00:08:26] budget and you see in that year one that lighter color year one on the left hand side of that the recommended CIP or as of October 28th we are now showing the 71 to as revenue and we have previously shown that as 124 which essentially our error was 53.1 so the yellow the bright yellow column on to the right of that is where we're showing that reconciled at 71 to in 71 - we also reconciled with the county funding levels for FY 2829 and FY 30 is not reconciled at this point but

[00:09:02] that's a few years away so we think we have time to do that so the next slide well I'm going to talk walk you through now this document you have in your sheet Because I know it's very small and difficult to read. I mean you have in your folder. I'm sorry So I do want to go through that and just illustrate where we have Identified the solution to this and you'll see anything on this sheet the yellow one you have here That's highlighted in blue are where we've made adjustments since the October 28th CIP and so I'll call your attention to

[00:09:38] lines 20 or two and three where you see critical systems renewal and energy conservation and efficiency projects essentially what we've done is move those projects to the right two years those are as as we know we've had many conversations those are important projects to us but one of the things we wanted to make sure of is that we took a look at this solution in a way that did not impact projects at schools that impacted programs and you're all the school board's priorities and those types of things we have as I've mentioned to you a number of times a

[00:10:13] fantastic facilities operations crews and engineers and facilitators and we will make sure our buildings are working properly and it's just a delay in those critical system renewals so that's on line two and three on line six you also see that we spread out the work for the visual and performing arts I assure you it has no change in the scope of the project that's identified in our books what we've done is we had originally and it's typical practice to fund the entire project up front so what we've done now is kept the design funding of 3.7 million in FY 27 and moved the first year of construction

[00:10:51] funding out it's when we're going to use anyway so it's more of a it's a cash flow change more than anything else but we feel like that was a an easy easy way to do that and still keep the project on task and on scope and so that's one change if you go down to line 23 you'll see support space that is for renovations to non-school buildings like this building and others and we originally had 5.7 million in FY27 I mean I'm sorry in FY28 and we've moved that to 850 and you see that highlighted in the blue square so

[00:11:29] anywhere you see a blue square without an arrow that's it hasn't moved from one year to the next it's just been reduced. So that was an effort to reconcile FY28. On line 28, you'll see the View Academy, Transition Academy, also a cash flow change. So there's no change to the scope or schedule of the project. It's just we've adjusted the cash flow and how we're going to manage the project. And as I said, that makes no change to the project at all. And the last one is a similar on line 30 where we've adjusted the Robey High School renovation. As you know, we're

[00:12:06] looking for a place to move that to so at this point we're completely comfortable in changing that number down to the five million dollars which will address the design once we find a location and then you'll see at the bottom we've taken the cap and to avoid this issue in the past so now we've pulled out the cap completely separate and we have you can see that in lines 51 through 54 where that is done and you see that is reconciled across the page again there's no changes to our priority projects we're focused on that we want to make sure that we're doing the projects that

[00:12:42] are schools that we've presented and promised and important to you all important to our schools and the majority of this is moving out those critical systems and energy projects so I know that was a lot to absorb and I'll just pause here to make sure that we have understanding or if you might have any specific questions about that Dr. Rashid thank you chair Thank you, mr. Lewis. This is very very comprehensive I just was wondering if and maybe you explained it and I apologize if you already did if you could explain the small blue

[00:13:18] Arrow between 17 and 18. I think it's a blue arrow. I'm sorry. Say it again The small if you can explain the blue arrow the tiny blue arrow between line 17 and 18 Yeah, I don't think it means anything. So we've we've got the same dollar there. All right. Thank you Well, I'll just double check that if we need to clarify it. We'll take that as a question, too

[00:13:59] Thank you madam chair. Thank you for the update I appreciate seeing where that money is gonna go and definitely understanding the scope of the projects Just out of curiosity when you're sort of building this budget in general This is more of like a philosophical question. Is it normal to have those different pockets and of areas to account for those kinds of Shortfalls where you can move things and pay them across different years rather than pay them in lump sums Is that a strategic move that you all make in case there is something like say a project that we didn't account for or things like that

[00:14:32] Is that normal for us to have those built in I'll say it is normal. It's not always Reflected on this document or in our CIP what we do every year is we work very closely with the county staff And as these projects are identified and usually in year one will ask for all the funding But we have a cash flow document that we send to them so that they know when we'll be drawing those those Projects and so they can plan for when they do bond sales and those types of things So that's always happening in the background and in this case one of our tasks was to

[00:15:09] reconcile the numbers for the appropriation not necessarily just the cash flow so it is essentially the same thing It's just a little more public this time because we've we've shifted that here to Reconcile the appropriation numbers which are what you're seeing on this sheet the total cost of the project now I appreciate it and I appreciate the transparency in it And then I just had a question about how that now correlates to the old green arrows in the last document So is this the most updated and we shouldn't look at the green or the green still hold and we're adding the blue So the green ones only indicated where we made changes from last year's CIP

[00:15:45] okay last year we adopted the FY 26 budget and in that 26 budget there was a column for FY 27 which is this year okay so that those green areas showed were the changes we made from there to here this is showing the blue areas show the changes we made from October 28th presentation to you to account for the 53 okay I so appreciate that clarification thank you yes mrs. Griffiths Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:16:14] I see, in addition for Eagle Ridge, with all the talk about enrollment, we had a discussion on rezoning and the need for specialized rooms.

[00:16:32] Did Dominion ever come up for an addition or anything like that so we wouldn't have to maybe rezone? I'm getting away from this a little bit, but I was just curious about that, number one.

[00:16:48] And number two, artificial turf. I feel like there are more priorities as far as renovations to our schools than turf. And I would, of course, like to see that broken down, who's getting the turf, because I know some of our schools have been wanting more renovations to their schools.

[00:17:13] Am I getting away from your sheet here? Can you just let me know? I mean, I'm going to add to your turf conversation in a minute, too. But I think that maybe it'd be better to go through the presentation first.

[00:17:30] Can you hold that conversation? Because I have some big questions about artificial turf. Yeah. Okay. So we'll just continue on with your presentation. And then we have no public comment.

[00:17:46] Correct. So I'll just announce that, and then we'll just continue on with that. Okay. All right. So thank you. So the other thing I wanted to share is that also in your packet tonight, there's another yellow sheet that has page 21 and 22 on it, and you'll see it's a yellow sheet, 8 1⁄2 by 11, and it is the critical systems and the energy conservation projects, and you'll just see in red strike-through where we've made the changes that I just described, because it reflects all the way down through the book.

[00:18:21] You'll also see that Sherry Byrne, our clerk, was very on the ball today and was able to get all posted. So we've revised all of the sheets in the back of the book for the individual sheets for each school. As you know, we have a school.

[00:18:37] And so those have been a change, too, and have just been updated to board docs. So you'll see how all those changes reflect through. And we opted not to print out the 100 pages of that because many of those have done that. But they will be there for your reference as well as you move forward.

[00:18:55] Okay, so the next thing we want to talk about was the survey. We did a special programs and capital budget survey through the RASI department, and we wanted to share the results of that with you tonight. And you'll see that, generally speaking, the survey results align with our proposed capital budget, so we're really happy to see that.

[00:19:13] We had a number of, if you'll recall, what we did is we asked parents and students to identify how they would spend a dollar in terms of pennies on different types of projects. And you see the different categories there. And you'll see on the left were the student responses.

[00:19:32] And athletics, career, and technical education, fine arts, theater, music, security, and restrooms were the top five. All those are in the CIP, and they're also part of your priorities as well as you've identified those.

[00:19:47] Parents were similar in nature. They had a lot of reflection of what was done by the by the students as well and you'll see the results there and we have more student responses than we did parent responses but they were fairly similar in reaction according to the top five so I offer that there for you in the board docs you also see a summary of that from Razzie Dr. Blakelock was unfortunately not able to be here tonight so if you have any specific questions about the survey and interpretation of that I might give it a whirl but if you have

[00:20:22] specific questions we'll get those and ask Dr. Blakelock to review those for us. So we had a lot of discussions about the new way we're identifying some of our projects and we've labeled that the school modernization program. And you remember this chart from the last presentation and what's different here is we've taken and added some additional information. So on the far left you see renovation replacement. So we have you know the facility condition assessment. Sorry I can

[00:20:56] speak. And the program adequacy is what shares that information, provides that. You'll see on and around you'll go, and we're going to talk a little bit more about the building and site renewals second from the right, where you see those are larger scopes of work that warrant condition or coordination or delay possibly with other projects along the way. And you'll see some examples of that as we go forward. So we want to just give you a little bit more information on how those things were derived and what what the school modernization program looks like this is a sheet that some of you we've had the opportunity to meet one on

[00:21:32] one and we've got some others planned that we were providing and I notified you that only October 28th we omitted this from the project so this is the list of how those projects ranked in terms of the facility condition assessment so you have the handout is also in your in your folder tonight and shows you how how those are derived a couple things to point out on that sheet you'll see there about maybe a quarter of the way down it says dates for project below are preliminary and subject to change so in an

[00:22:08] effort to keep the CIP as as solid or as we possibly can we wanted to make sure that people could count on projects that are listed in the first six years of the CIP so if your school is expected of renovation it doesn't change you think you're going to get one in two or three years so We wanted to make sure that we identified the projects above that line as those are in the CIP, those are planned, those are beginning to work, and those will not change as we move forward.

[00:22:39] Anything below that line, as I've mentioned a few times, that we are constantly doing work in every one of our schools every day. And so as we do some projects along the way, that may change how that facility scores in the facility condition assessment year after year. and so those projects may shift a little bit one way or the other but the ones above that line will remain unchanged as I mentioned we do review that facility condition assessment on an annual basis to make sure we're capturing all the work that's been done and capturing we have the consultants and our team goes through each building too to make sure we haven't overlooked anything that

[00:23:14] either has been done or needs to be done so what we'll try to review in this slide is that long-term school modernization strategy so this is a strategy about how we go and choose which how these schools are listed on that sheet it's tied to the facility condition assessment as you see are that we've done 49 schools in the first two years and we have the rest of them to do in year three and then we have as I mentioned in that you see a little diagram on the left where we had that

[00:23:52] building and site renewals there are a couple examples of projects that fall under that and on your big yellow sheet those show up in lines five through nine and what we want to do is try to give you an example that they include visual and performing arts the independent living labs the cte ctae renovations cafeteria additions and special programs academies so what we would do is as our goal is to try to look at those when we're coordinating long-term projects and making sure that we are considering those and when they need to be done compared to

[00:24:30] other projects as we go along you'll see that a typical funding strategy I want to point out that the dates you see in the CIP are the dates that the funding starts so we didn't want to have people confused that's the year a project so if a renovation is shown in year FY 27 that's the year we get the money to start the design a year later than that we do the construction a year or two after that the project is done so that no one's misled or misunderstands that that is the year that it opens so that you know every project takes time and so this is what we would want to try to do is to show you a you know a project from beginning in could take six to seven years

[00:25:09] and so we to be a little more specific on what we were just talking about you see here in this box on the left a particular school an example high school if it's scored as number eight in the facility condition assessment which means there are seven schools above it that scored higher than that when we plan that project we want to do is consider doing the visual performing arts tennis court lighting practice and artificial turf fields depending on the conversation we're about to have about that and the ctae renovations try to group those all in one thing because they could affect

[00:25:47] one another as an example if we're going to add on to a building and that footprint of the new addition sits on the tennis courts that's not very good planning so we want to make group those together so we can coordinate that work but as an example at the bottom you see the independent living lab is something that can be done it's interior to the building it has no effect on the footprint and that would be something we would do separately and go ahead and get that done and as you know that was one of your school board's priorities I think it was number one priority and so we want to make sure that those get done as soon as possible so just an example have some projects we would hold together in group as one project and then others we would let them go

[00:26:26] forward just to give you a little bit of insight on how we plan projects overall so we wanted to talk about the school modernization projects themselves and those are on the sheet we just talked about earlier on the long-term plan okay so on this slide you'll see that we have a number of projects that are planned for the school renovation and replacement program and what's that

[00:27:05] means is we're going to look at those schools to see whether or not they need to have a major renovation a renovation in an addition or possibly does that school warrant to be replaced similar to what we're doing with Parkview high school so those decisions are not made ahead of time they will be done when we when we start the design process we'll go through that we'll look at each building on the merits of how the building is performing not only from a facilities perspective but also from an instructional perspective to make sure that that building is still meeting the needs of the instructional folks in in the students so those decisions we made as we go you'll see here Sully Hamilton

[00:27:45] Meadowland and Loudoun County Parking are all planned for FY29 to have that full assessment so those decisions we made in the FY29 timeframe for that consideration we also added and those were shown in last year CIP this year we were able to as a result of what we just talked about and going through that facility condition assessment and reprioritizing we've added sterling elementary school to that as well but in year 2030 and then you see there that the construction and FF&E follow two years behind that so we would get that

[00:28:21] design money go through the bidding and design process assessment then design and bidding and then do the construction so this is a little bit more detail than you would have in the book when you see you know on the on the big yellow sheet only shows as a one line you see dollars associated with that in a lump sum and that's included for all those projects and this is how we break that down. You see the totals running across the bottom. So one of those projects as I mentioned the building and site renewals there are several under that category in lines five through nine are the CTAE renovations and those

[00:28:58] are ones we have already worked on so in the summer of 24 we went through and removed the old built-in casework and you see some photographs there of the outdated from an instructional perspective, casework in those spaces that we've been able to tear out in the four older middle schools and provide some flexible furniture in place of that.

[00:29:19] So currently there's a project balance of that and a $4.5 million from previous year's funding, and we're going to use that to continue to coordinate with Dr. Grubbs and his team on priorities on the rest of the schools in addressing that same issue. And you'll see there the note that we're aligning that with Dr. Grubbs' pathway expansion, planning, career, connecting, and learning.

[00:29:42] And so you all were briefed on that, I think, probably at the end of October on that as well. So this is in coordination with that program as well. The next one that falls under that building and site category, the visual and performing arts. And this is just an example of all the different things that are in those programs that we're going to be looking at as we start.

[00:30:02] You'll see that group one of those is Stonebridge, Broad Run, Potomac Falls, County, Valley, and Freedom. For the high school side, and then in the middle school is Sterling, Simpson, River Bend, and Gum Springs. You see all that detail can be found on page 24, how we're going to go through each of those levels.

[00:30:21] And this is very much in coordination with Mr. Pearson and his folks in the visual and performing arts area. far as in the the order of those projects also came in coordination with with his department independent living labs as I mentioned a little earlier you see those group one and the list of schools that are there and we're moving forward with those have a little diagram there of what that looks like to provide that residential setting for students to be able to experience those learning objectives in the space in the building and so we're we're moving forward with

[00:30:59] that and that design funding was was provided in last year's CIP and so we're moving forward and working on the schools you see listed there so these two so this slide in the next one we flipped on you what's in your package so because we just had them out of order in the in the book and so the first one is what we call this is now moved out of the school modernization section and beginning on line 11 is where you see all the other types of projects and we wanted to call attention to a few of these the restroom privacy and safety improvements was also

[00:31:35] a priority for the school board and we have identified prior year appropriations in FY25 that we did a number of those projects on and so now the next one coming forward is going to be Stonebridge High School we have additional funding in 2028 to be able to go through all the high schools and all the middle schools to make sure that they have similar facilities that we have in the schools that we've already performed this work at, Heritage, Woodgrove, and Dominion I believe it is. Capital Asset Preservation Plan, as noted as another one of those projects, it was

[00:32:15] it comes to us as a single project from the county and a separate funding but under that heading there are hundreds of projects and you see listed there numerous types of projects there but essentially they are things that are valued over $10,000 and have a lifespan of 10 years so replacing it, you see there a piece of HVAC equipment being loaded down to the campus to replace that.

[00:32:42] And so there are many hundreds of projects just like that, and that is the way we do many projects. And we have flexibility in that as well, and so over time, if some changes happen, as I mentioned earlier, if we have a school where one of the critical systems was planned that we haven't gotten to yet, we can utilize this funding to make sure that we keep the school up and running at all times.

[00:33:03] So we've also been working hard on the fleet replacement, and so the fleet management plan has been an ongoing project for a number of years. We've been doing a pilot program for electric buses and also for propane buses to see what is the best fleet arrangement we can put together.

[00:33:27] And so we wanted to make sure that we looked at a couple of different things, the operational requirements, how many miles we drive, where we drive them, what types of routes there are, the long routes, short routes, and also the environmental impacts to that and then the cost associated with how we manage our fleet moving forward. So just as a little bit of context, our operational requirements, as you know, we have quite a large fleet. We have 767 buses right now. We drive about 8 million miles a year and that equates to 13,000 tons of

[00:34:00] CO2 emissions. Our white fleet is a total of 509 vehicles, 4 million miles, and 3.6 tons of CO2 emissions. So as we look at all those, that's our uses. Those are the things, that's our operational requirements. Then we move towards, what does that mean to our environment? And you'll see there is a list of fossil fuel impacts, greenhouse gases, and the others there. And you see in that little circle on the right. 23% of our impacts of that, the emissions are related to our fleets. 69, almost 70% are related to our buildings. So the impact on our environment comes a great deal from

[00:34:40] our buildings. And then we have waste streams as much as 7%. So we need to think about how can we affect that, that 23%. You know, we consider what comes out of the tailpipe of all of our vehicles. Some of our vehicles don't have tailpipes, and that's considered as well.

[00:34:57] And there are a number of things that we consider. And as we went through that process trying to figure out what is the best way to move forward, we know as an example, and we've done a lot of work on the electric fleet, those buses have been good experiences in many ways, and we've had some, there are some drawbacks to that.

[00:35:18] One is their distance. So we would not likely have an electric bus on a route out west where we're driving farther and longer, and we may not have the battery power to do that. And so then if you have, even if you can schedule it to work the route, if you have any problems or any trouble along the way, then you have issues with running out of power.

[00:35:37] So those are things that we looked at. As you know, we upped our propane buses. We bought 15 propane buses this year, which cost about a $60,000 premium to the diesel bus, whereas the electric bus is three times the cost of the diesel bus.

[00:35:55] And so in trying to make the best argument for how we want to move forward, what we're saying here is our goal for the FY27, which is a 10-year goal, to have 85% of our fleet as the propane buses, 10% in diesel, and 5% would be the others, including the electric.

[00:36:14] And, you know, if the electric buses continue to improve and the price comes down, then we may come back and make adjustments to that. But right now, based on if everything stays the way it is now, we would recommend to go with that ratio for the 10-year goal.

[00:36:30] And you'll see included in this year's CIP are six diesel buses and 54 propane buses to start us on our way to getting to those goals. The White Fleet, similar. We have a 10-year goal where, and this reflects a lot of how we operate our vehicles and the types of vehicles we use and what's available from the market.

[00:36:55] Our 10-year goal is to have 59% gas, 39% electric, and then 2% diesel. And you'll see there that the cost is about $14 million over the 10 years. We have added the white fleet to the bus replacement line in the CIP.

[00:37:12] You'll see that. We've purchased the white fleet over the years in the lease purchase, and you'll see during our operating budget discussions, simply not enough for the cost of vehicles as they've increased over time. So we do have, as I mentioned earlier, 509 vehicles total, but the electric vehicles are working better for the light fleet for a certain position, so we were proposing to have 39% of that replaced by electric vehicles over that 10-year period.

[00:37:43] So next I'm gonna have mr. Stocks help me. We've had many many many discussions about playgrounds in the last several months and one of the specific topics was Accessibility for our inclusive playgrounds and a lot of questions about how can students access the playgrounds so mr. Stocks is going to take us through The next couple of slides to get a little bit deeper into those details and hopefully answer some questions may have had over time with that thank you mr lewis so this first slide is just an overview of

[00:38:22] kind of what we've done and where we are and what we're planning based on the three-year program to provide inclusive playgrounds at all elementary schools in lcps the top box are those that were completed this summer the middle three boxes are either underway in construction currently planned for the spring or the summer and then the 12 after that beyond that would be uh fy 27 in a similar um staggered plan to do them in the fall spring and summer and then there is a final

[00:38:55] year to finish up which would be the fy 28 including 12 the 12 remaining schools so that's just an overview of kind of how the project is going since we started it this past july 1.

[00:39:10] This slide is just a reminder. This is kind of an abbreviated version of what's in Regulation 6320 playgrounds related to the minimum equipment standard that we've developed. And this is where we really want to highlight the things, the changes that we have included on all playgrounds being constructed by LCPS now to be inclusive.

[00:39:30] And you know the common conversation pieces around the unitary poured-in-place rubber surfacing versus the engineered wood fiber or mulch. We talk about fences, but there's also some more detailed information in regulation about how the structures are constructed to allow children with mobility devices, such as ramped components, at least one motion-oriented piece of equipment that can be used by a child in a wheelchair without having to leave the wheelchair or the mobility device.

[00:40:01] But I just wanted to highlight this to point out that we do every playground that's constructed is based off of our policy and regulation, and our minimum equipment standard is included. So what we have here is a prototypical playground that we utilize now here at LCPS, and we will continue moving forward with all playgrounds constructed moving forward.

[00:40:30] Obviously, due to the footprint of the playground at an actual school, it may be shaped differently, it may be spaced differently, it may be oriented differently. However, all of the minimum standard equipment that we require is included on these playgrounds.

[00:40:47] So what I kind of wanted to do was, because the conversation had been around children and mobility devices, I did not point out and denote every piece of play equipment that's on this playground. But I wanted to highlight a few of the things that were taken into consideration when that design standard was developed.

[00:41:05] So I'll just kind of go clockwise and go around with you guys. But these at the perimeter of the playground, at ground level, these are serenity spots. That's the name of the play equipment. But it is somewhere a child could go and play, and they could play together with another child, or they could come away from the more crowded central piece and kind of play at the perimeter of the playground if they were sensitive to loud noises or hyperactive kids running around.

[00:41:38] This piece of equipment I wanted to highlight because it is basically a glorified seesaw type of play equipment, but everything that we install now at ground level is within the ADA-required transfer height, so between 11 and I believe it's 24 inches, so that if a child is in a mobility device, they can transfer.

[00:42:02] If they do have the ability to transfer from their wheelchair, they can play on this and transfer over. Oops, bear with me here. This is a spinner play equipment that is designed so that a child with a mobility device can actively get on without being able to take themselves out of their chair and play on it with other students as well. This is just an example. I'm going to zoom in on it in a second, but this

[00:42:39] is how a student with a mobility device can navigate the entire playground or entire central piece of equipment. This is a ramp structure. It navigates all the way through the entire inside, So all the play panels that are inside the equipment can be utilized.

[00:42:59] And then this larger area for turning around or for additional students to play. And then a ramp structure off exiting the playground. Anything elevated here also has a transfer platform that enables a child that's able to remove themselves from their mobility device to traverse that and play on these pieces of equipment.

[00:43:25] So this is basically just your pathway through the playground throughout the elevated devices. This I wanted to highlight because we have this type of equipment or play equipment throughout the entire playground.

[00:43:42] But it's just an example of a ground level piece of equipment that can be used by a child in a mobility device. or at ground level any student can play without having to leave their device or their equipment.

[00:44:01] These are little capsules that are underneath hanging. They're suspended within this structure so that children can play similar to a tunnel type of device. But I wanted to highlight this because this shows an actual child transferring from their mobility equipment to the play equipment.

[00:44:26] These are our communications and play panels. They're all at ground level. There's an array of different activities, whether it's, in this case, Braille, or if it's a communications panel, or if it's a play panel with movable objects that can be played with by a child at ground level.

[00:44:47] And then here's an example of the transfer platform on a slide. So if the child does have the ability to transfer, they could theoretically go up into the play equipment, the central play equipment, slide down, and then return to their wheelchair if they had assistance, and it enables them to be able to play on this, or they can start here and climb up if they so choose.

[00:45:12] But it just, I wanted to highlight this because it does show that this was a design, an engineered thought to make sure that this is available and equipped for a child with a wheelchair. Whereas any other child without a wheelchair could also slide on this slide.

[00:45:31] It's not exclusive to any specific ability. Here we have our music panels at ground level. So there's different types of play equipment that provides music and sound, and they can play on those.

[00:45:47] They may look slightly different at different schools, but this is the general concept of a ground level play equipment. And then here's the swing, which is also multiple children can play on this together. And it is also always installed at the required transfer height so that if a child has a mobility device and has the ability to transfer, they could.

[00:46:13] So that is about my show and tell for this. But I wanted to show how much really went into this design and working with the experts and the feedback from SEAC. We have, we have shade, we've started, we've begun to provide shade, not only on the play equipment for the children playing, but at the perimeter with the benches, and there's various other equipment throughout the playground that presents a challenge and entertainment and a play value for children of all abilities.

[00:46:51] Sorry, we only have a few more slides yet to go, and so we wanted to highlight a couple other projects. We have a number of athletic projects, which includes the turf and lights, and that essentially is a second artificial turf field with lights on it at every high school to accommodate the significant number of teams that play year-round and the troubles we have getting on fields, especially this time of year when the time has changed.

[00:47:26] We also have tennis court lighting at all the high schools and then walking tracks at the middle schools and elementary schools, and you see the values of that in the books at the bottom the page numbers on the page if you want to look at those and get more details so i did want to talk about the view academy this is our our first uh view of the view academy with the the schematic design of putting together all the programs and working with our friends and teaching learning and special ed to make sure that we're addressing the needs of that school it is as as we know on being planned on a site purchased by the county we're in that project

[00:48:03] our programming concept design part has been finished and that's what you see here and we'll begin that design for the actual construction of that in the fall of 25. We have quite a process to go through yet to get permissions through the site plan those types of things zoning approvals through the county but that's being worked on as we as we speak and you'll see there a job skills for students aged 14 to 22 with a number of different things that we're planning for that that space we're all i think everyone's really excited about this project and really happy to be

[00:48:35] able to get it moving forward we also have a little bit of funding for outdoor play spaces you'll see these are opportunities for kids and invitation for not only the kids but for the the the teachers to take their kids outside it's just the benefits of that are in new and immeasurable and we want to make sure we're accommodating that that collaboration for this is being managed through our office of sustainability as as well as with the sustainability framework that the board approved back in june as well so it's in alignment with that and also with teaching and learning so we're

[00:49:15] really excited about being able to get those projects moving at as many of the schools as possible over the next few years oops sorry a couple other projects just to touch on the unified communication system that's our partnership with ddi and mr smith on that where we're You've probably seen a number of the schools where we have the multicolored light systems and it's integrated into one system where we have that emergency call, the intercom, and as well as lockdown and fire alarm, all those types of things.

[00:49:48] Well, the fire alarm is separate, but the lockdown and other types of emergency situations are all done in color-coded systems. We do have a significant project as we do every year, $6 million a year for technical security to replace all the equipment, thousands and thousands of equipment, cameras and iPhones and access controls throughout the system.

[00:50:11] We also have a partnership with our school nutrition team on replacing their equipment that's also included in the CIP. So other projects, I know Ms. Griffin you started to ask about additions and so part of the reason we have the additions in there is to pair the middle schools with their high schools in anticipation of the work this board is going to do for our secondary boundary changes that will go into effect in the fall of 2028 with coinciding with the opening of high school 14.

[00:50:47] And so the idea is for Eagle Ridge and Farmwell to be paired in equal attendance or equal capacity with their feeder high schools at Briarwoods and at Broad Run so that, you know, we have the right number of students matriculating forward.

[00:51:04] So we don't want to have to lower the capacity of one school because their feeder school is not, you know, if the high school can hold more than we have an overcrowded middle school to fill the high school. And so that idea, we've been working towards getting this in there for quite a while. And so our goal is to have those online in time for whatever decisions the board makes about the secondary boundary changes in the fall of 28.

[00:51:31] So this is a pretty, just a snapshot of the work sessions coming up. We have another work session on December 1, and then that culminates on adoption on December 16. And that QR code will take you right to the web page where we have the full CIP there for your view and you have a hard copy of that as well.

[00:51:56] And that is the end of our presentation and we are most happy to take questions and have a whole crew of people in the back, as you know, that help us with that. If we don't have the answer right on the top of our heads, we will take that down and get it back to you in writing and review all those at the next work session.

[00:52:15] Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Vice Chair Donoghue, would you mind doing your stating your disclosure first before we move on? Certainly. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a member of the Loudoun County School Board, I make the following disclosure to the school board and to the general public in connection with the item on tonight's agenda regarding employees' salaries, the budget, and or health insurance, and any other discussion that may include or affect salary and benefits for LCPS employees.

[00:52:40] Specifically, my spouse, my minor children, and I are enrolled in LCPS health insurance that may be affected by any potential changes to employee salaries, the budget, and or health insurance. Additionally, my sister-in-law is an LCPS employee who does not reside with me and is not dependent on me. These subjects include thousands of employees while in excess of the statutory three employees whose interests may be affected, of which my spouse, my minor children, my sister-in-law, and I am included. I can and will participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. This disclosure will be reflected in the public records of the clerk of the school board for five years. Thank you Vice Chair Donohue. As I said before we have no one signed up for

[00:53:17] public comment tonight. So Mrs. Griffiths did you have any more things to say since I told you to wait so I thought I would give you the first opportunity. Thank you Madam Chair. I know you wanted to mention you had questions about the turf. I personally would like to know what your thoughts are if you don't mind sharing. We might collide with some of the same ideas. The reason why I'm asking that is because Broad Run is listed for 2027 and I next time I go there I'll take a

[00:53:53] look at the turf but I know they want renovations in their school more so than possibly the turf and I have other issues with the turf so I just wanted if you don't mind Madam Chair just going over that what your thoughts were on the turf. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Sure. So we were informed that the town of Parsifil has already tested municipal wells and found that they have PFAS contamination in the groundwater at the well on the Woodgrove High School campus, which is adjacent to the athletic stadium. The well is currently offline, but the town would like to

[00:54:31] bring it back online, and they're looking with a consultant how to do that. And a part of their research, the town has requested permission to sample our artificial turf field on the Ward Grove high school campus because PFAS has been commonly used and is used very commonly in the manufacturing of artificial grass turf over the past several decades. And I know that some people say that manufacturers have recently stopped using them, but I don't know that that's necessarily true.

[00:55:01] I think that's more marketing than anything. They claim that their artificial turf is now PFAS free, but I don't know that that's supported by research quite yet. So I'm wondering, have we, part of the issue was that if the town determines that the artificial turf at Woodgrove is contributing to the PFAS levels in the groundwater at the well, they may request that we take corrective action, which may be to redo the turf.

[00:55:32] So have we gotten any indication of any of the research or any of that so far? Because I would hate to keep on doing it, and then we're contaminating things. So we don't have the results yet. In fact, I don't think the town has taken their samples yet, and so we still need to get that information.

[00:55:52] What we can offer in the interim is we will get whatever information we can from the manufacturers that are providing it now, and acknowledge your comment that it may not be based yet in science, So we'll make sure that we can get as much information as we can so the board has a level of comfort with moving forward with that project.

[00:56:11] In talking with you, we were talking about how the Forever chemicals are found in the artificial turf used to help make the plastic blades during manufacturing and prevent clogs. There were some other things that they were, and for UV protection also, they use PFAS.

[00:56:33] and then in the plastic backing and various types of fill. So, Mrs. Griffiths, we might come to a meeting of the minds at this point, depending on what the rest of the school board see.

[00:56:49] Yes, ma'am. Go ahead, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. And per what Chair Mansfield had mentioned, just to give you a list, plastic pollution, problem with waste management, As far as the carbon footprint, the manufacturing, transportation, and installation process for artificial turf creates a significant carbon footprint.

[00:57:13] Habitat loss, water and soil disruption, as Chairman Mansfield mentioned, and toxic materials. I guess my question to you is, if we don't use the artificial turf, what do we do?

[00:57:29] If some of our schools need grass or need it for playing out in the field, what could we do if this research comes back and it's really toxic to our students?

[00:57:45] What are your thoughts? What could we do instead? I know that people talk about fertilizers and things like that for the grass. I know that's part of it. But there might be some other things that we can think about if we do have to use artificial turf. so in instead of an immediate answer right now I think what I'll do is I'll get with the folks from athletics and talk about talk through that and I was here for the transition from natural grass to artificial grass and we had a number of those same conversations about the fertilizers and the water and all the things that take on that one of the the main things that we talked about

[00:58:24] during that period also was the true and consistent surface of the artificial versus lumps and things and, you know, the opportunity for more injuries for, you know, uneven ground with the natural turf. So those were things we talked about in consideration, but what I'll do is I'll get with Mr. Ferry and talk through that and come back with the board with a little bit more information on the comparison of the two.

[00:58:48] I'm not aware of another alternative, but we'll have that conversation as well. And then if you could just get back to us with that research, if you can find it, or if they're still interested, Percival is still interested in doing their research as far as looking at whether it is the artificial turf that is potentially going into their well.

[00:59:16] It could be any number of things. We'll certainly do that, and we'll do our very best to have more information for you at the December 1st work session. Thank you. Any other? Yes, Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:59:31] I also wanted to point out for Stonebridge, it was brought to my attention that, and I think I might have mentioned it before, they fundraised to get that turf and they're paying, I guess, fees every year to maintain that turf.

[00:59:48] And I don't, maybe you know, Mr. Lewis, how old that turf is because every PTA that comes in has to put money to pay for that, to pay it off. um so maybe you can give me some information on that and if we had a solution um you know i i guess you'll come back to us with that as well not having turf i i'm assuming we'd put grass regular grass but i just wanted to throw that out there that this uh pta has to pay for this turf

[01:00:23] every year and um i guess make payments on it and they're pretty upset about that yes man i'll get the full history but the original turf field was put in at Stonebridge and it has been replaced by the way it's so it's already outlived its first life but it was put in an agreement prior to the school board making it a standard to do that and the the boosters at the time took out a loan to put that project in and they had a sponsor to do that so that's an agreement that the boosters made outside of the school system and so I can't really speak to that but I think that's probably what you're referring to that they're they're working through that agreement that they had when with the original

[01:01:02] installation thank you yeah okay no I think we're done with the turf any other discussion yes mr. Chernoff thank you madam chair I'm gonna work through a couple of categories quickly if that's okay I just wanted to clarify something about Appendix B with the school list I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly obviously my community I hear a lot from Loudoun County High School with their restrictions in terms of being a historical site and limited in their

[01:01:37] ability to obviously fully renovate all the spaces but I thought I heard you say that when you do the FCA analysis and you look at those schools and then you make a plan to fix some of those things though that collective score when you fix those things then can throw them down the list in terms of later needing of renovations is that correct yes so as we do work there and so for early in the on the list we're going to do the parking improvements which will also impact some of the outside things so that may that there's a score for the interior and the score for the exterior but we know that

[01:02:17] there are a lot of things on the interior of that building in particular to do and so it would have the ability to have an impact on that and we wouldn't know that until we get a full plan for that and do that evaluation next year it does and I think it's important for the public to understand that process that when you address one thing that does affect the overall score so you might have to wait a little bit longer for something else and so just helping the bigger picture I think that that was an important thing that you said my next thing is I see on here that in Leesburg I hear a lot about these electric signs we talked about it

[01:02:54] before I see that that is not really a line item for a little while so if you could just speak to how many schools in general need electric signs and don't have the old school signs so that I have an understanding of sort of where that process is so we'll put together a list for that for the one and but I think it's quite extensive there may be as many as 50 or 60 schools that don't have the electronic science okay I appreciate that and then in terms of the conversation about sustainability in the courtyards I just wanted to make a

[01:03:32] clarification that those are for outdoor learning spaces and we're not talking about the courtyards that the special education students in programs and preschools are using or is that could impact that as well it's our intent to not to impact that and it was a photograph of a courtyard but it doesn't necessarily have to be a courtyard so we're trying to look for ways to provide outdoor learning spaces and it may be different at every school so that's something we would evaluate with the school as we go out look where opportunities are and try to find the best solution for that but we wouldn't want to impact a current program by any means okay and then the two through five

[01:04:09] playgrounds that are projected out would be more of a means of addressing those play spaces and accessibility for younger students in general yes ma'am okay and then one last question I'm gonna bring it to playgrounds so I don't know if there'll be more questions. I want to thank you very much. It's very helpful. So helpful to see that and to understand where kids can play and how they can play. I mentioned last time that you know for me it's a real priority to continue on the three-year plan. I think that fighting for that was important and I continue to that sentiment is still important to me. I did have a chance to

[01:04:48] get out to see some spaces in the last couple of weeks. And I guess my biggest question is, is there a way to consider future projects that would be separate from this? Because I think the fear is that if we put these inclusive playgrounds down where current playgrounds are, and I saw the regulation, and they meet all of those standards, that there would not be a possibility for another place to have something that might also be inclusive, whether that's a line item that we would take on as a school board, that there would be advocacy for, or funds within the school community?

[01:05:26] Is it an all or nothing? Or is there room for those add-on projects to work either side by side or down the road so that children continue, especially in these MD programs, to have access? Certainly, there's opportunity for just about anything we wanted to look at from a board's perspective.

[01:05:46] So our goal and the way we put this together was based on the conversation we had last year's CIP to do make it a priority to have a 5 to 12 age group playground inclusive playground at every one of our schools and then come back and do the two to five so I think if we have particular individual projects with separate funding thing or if the board wanted to get involved with that we can certainly make that work as well okay so that could it's not restricted in terms of the space that you're replacing at these schools if there was other space that could be carved out i mean i'm guessing that would be more expensive it would okay and so

[01:06:22] our our current budget is planned to do the 5 to 12 plant ground like mr stocks just described at all the schools and so if there were other projects to do there would need to be another funding source whether it's fundraised by the pta or if the school board wanted to take on a project like that it would need to be additional funding into what's currently in the cip for that project i appreciate that clarification and thank you again it was beautifully presented thank you all I just wanted to add to the playground conversation if we're so I totally appreciate

[01:06:56] everything you've done and and I really I also really love that you um were more explicit about the actual you know usage and things like that and the actual uh things the one thing that it's we had an example of the of a child in a wheelchair but we didn't have but what I'm wondering is the children in wheelchairs that are more severely impacted that may need belts that for the swings or something like that is there in your looking through these things have you seen anything for

[01:07:32] that so we have and we've engaged both of our contractors that we currently utilize right now to build these inclusive playgrounds and they are looking into this for us the challenge that they brought to our attention and i think we touched upon last time we discussed the playground inclusive playground update is that these playgrounds are designed for public accessibility so these are public playgrounds and they have certain certifications and safety standards that they have to be by that their quick explanation to us as they said they would dive deeper into their catalog and see if they can find something like what we're looking for would be more like

[01:08:08] Mrs. Chernoff said where it's it's a separate project it may have to have different accessibility it may be under a gate and a key because of the nature of the equipment so there are things out there like that or the harnesses for example if it's a removable piece of equipment it could easily get stolen or misplaced or lost or damaged so those will be more like add-ons or things that we would work with student services on to try and hone in on exactly what we're trying to provide and then how to facilitate that so when you talk about that there's a I guess I can understand about the harnesses and maybe there's a

[01:08:47] way that's more portable that you can bring it in and bring it out with the children but I guess I don't understand quite what even though it's public why that would be an issue with some of this equipment why is that a safety issue can you explain that to me a little bit further it's one of the things we have to be careful of is we're providing the playground for our school day and students and teachers that would take a student out that would have that supervision with that with the student but after hours someone could come on to the property and use the piece of equipment that doesn't have the right supervision and maybe get injured and so it's a risk and we're not saying it's

[01:09:27] not possible to do we're just saying that as mr. stock said we've asked our consultants to look into a little bit deeper to see to make sure we don't want to put something out there that then causes a risk of harm on off hours for after school and weekends those types of things when the general public can come onto our property and we invite them to do so we want to make sure that it's safe for anybody that just comes on the property and maybe uses that and so that's what he was talking about with possibly having a lock or something but then if you have a fence we don't want people climbing over the fence we just really need to look through the safety of those pieces of equipment once we do that research and we haven't gotten that back yet so there are not any county kinds

[01:10:06] of things that have those kinds of you know parks or anything like clemmy jontree or anything like that no we did reach out to parks and rec and they have not begun they do not have a park currently and and they're if if even the conversation has begun they're not developing or constructing anything at this point in time but something like clemmage on your park i guess it's in fairfax correct and that specific we we looked at that specific example because that was something that we thought oh is that something we could duplicate or or add or even as an option as

[01:10:42] an additional project that the swing that most people are referring to that children can use with their mobility device is has two keys it's in it's it's in its own fenced in enclosure and you have to check the keys out to get into the swing area and then furthermore to engage the apparatus to allow the child to swing because of the size and and they have a term for it in the safety manual about heavy metal apparatus. It creates its own risk by having that. So therefore at that particular park, the adult supervision has to check out the keys to access and utilize

[01:11:21] the equipment. Thank you, Mr. Stock. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Ms. LaBelle, you had some questions? Oops, sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question about your white fleet replacement, not playgrounds today have you done any research on replacing some of the larger SUV type vehicles or even the smaller ones with hybrids they can handle longer distances and also use less gas that might be an option you might want to look at for some of them have you done anything in that

[01:11:59] area I haven't done that but that's a good question and we'll we'll look into that and And bring back some information on December 1st at the next work session okay appreciate that idea. I mean I've had an SUV Hybrid for 13 years we've got over 200,000 miles on it and it's still getting about 44 miles to the gallon And it takes all kinds of road so that might be something that you could consider. Okay. Thank you I thought missing from the list. That's all. Thank you. Thank you board members. Any other questions? Yes, mr

[01:12:34] And we can discuss this further one-on-one as well, Mr. Lewis, but I think as I look at the critical systems lines, I would be curious to understand really, I know we have an amazing team, but we do have these older facilities, what would be the biggest risks to pushing off some of those critical systems renewals and, you know, just having seen a bunch of things happen just this year, right?

[01:13:02] So some of the schools have more challenging ventilation issues. Some of the layouts of the schools don't really fit with some of the modern spaces in the newer schools. So you can do less with those spaces, as we've discussed.

[01:13:18] And then because of ventilation issues, when we have a really rough summer, we have mold issues, which the team has addressed fantastically. But I just want to know the full breadth of possible consequences to pushing off critical systems renewals, knowing that we have an amazing team to be able to handle it.

[01:13:40] And do we have to think about the resources we have to then deal with those things for those extra two years and not taking on those projects? Yeah, so that's kind of where I'm curious.

[01:13:56] And then also just recognizing some of the inequities in some of the older buildings, the differences that you would see walking into an older building despite it being at par and ready for learning, when you compare them to the new schools, how would we then counterbalance that?

[01:14:18] We've talked about the furniture refreshes, right? And now that we do have furniture refreshes, if we have older furniture at a school we know is not going to get the critical systems updates or renovations, can we then compensate in the way the building looks and feels even more so than we already do is there a way to address some of those things so I'm again I just want to be make sure that we're being as creative as possible in the way we're thinking about when we push off some of these big renovations sure no there's a lot of questions in there I'll try to address them so though the first one you asked what the risk

[01:14:56] were and you know the biggest risk probably which is probably the largest risk in terms of dollars is a catastrophic failure of a system that is something that we don't think is imminent we don't think that's something that we wouldn't recommend moving things out if we thought that was going to happen the this the way to manage that is to make sure that we're keeping an eye on individual pieces of equipment in that system to make sure we're doing that Guilford's a good example we replaced one of the classroom units this this summer because that unit was not going to make it as you know we had many many issues with that unit so it wasn't going to make it to the critical system no matter when that

[01:15:34] was so that's an example of how we address that problem with the cap and so you know the cap allows us to go in and match or replace individual pieces of equipment as time goes on you mentioned the schools that we had mold issues and we had three schools this summer and I think we were actually pretty lucky compared to some of our surrounding areas that had many many more problems than that we are going to address those three schools through project funding that we have in in that cap and one of the things that um to remember is um if you look on your yellow sheet

[01:16:12] there that fourth column in it says the the funding program anything that says cra beside it which is our capital renewal and alterations that is um comes to us from the county as one single project so we have some flexibility in that and so with with that project is one of the ways we're going to go in those three schools and address that with some fresh air so we have a better way to manage that the humidity in that building went during the summer setback and so we haven't lost sight of that we know that's an issue and we don't want to repeat that this fall or next fall and so it's one of the ways that we're looking at the system holistically to make sure that we're

[01:16:50] addressing the things that are the highest priority to make sure that we're addressing those things as a high risk areas as well to to keep us from having a catastrophic issue so we feel comfortable as as i mentioned we have folks that are keeping an eye on this every day and they know know our buildings very very well and are doing our very best to see when we have an issue we're going to address it the best we can and you know we may have to make decisions in that over time and then we would come to the board and say we think this is a higher priority than that and we move it to make sure we're addressing that and and keeping that environment for our staff and our students

[01:17:23] during the school day any other yes miss chandler thank you madam chair and thank you for the presentation um i have to say as i sit here tonight i'm really reflecting um in terms of the playgrounds on the journey that we've taken here and i have to say looking at the examples of the play equipment and what is going to be possible at our schools for many many children fills me with hope because i'm sure we all remember this conversation really started with

[01:17:58] testimony directly from a child who came and the child parent who shared with us the challenges that they face on the playground every day. And so I am grateful for the journey that we've gone on together and our willingness to try to improve the developmental opportunities that our students have regardless of their abilities. That said, I have two questions and I know I'm asking these tonight off the top um without any notice so i don't need an answer tonight but um are there

[01:18:36] other types of equipment at clemen jaundry that don't have to be locked up that could offer more access so that that was originally what we reached out to our contractors on is to say hey are there things that we're not including whether it's in our standard or as the additional equipment that's just available through their catalog. So we are researching and trying to find other options that may allow a child with a mobility device to not have to leave their mobility device similar to our spinner. We're waiting on that. I appreciate that effort. I just can't get past the idea of

[01:19:15] this piece of special equipment that has to be kept separate. Even though, I mean, it could be very developmentally beneficial it's still not inclusive right so I'm just really struggling with that a little bit I want so I appreciate that effort thank you for continuing to look into that and maybe I'll go to Clem and Jantry and check it out myself the last question I have is the next time we regroup it would be helpful to understand a little bit more about the liability

[01:19:48] that we hold in situations like that where I mean of course when we have staff on playground and students on playground that that's a completely different supervised situation but when the school is closed but open to the community between the end of the school day and when the sun goes down are there any protections that exist for the school board in terms of liability? Yeah, that would be a Mr. Allen question, but I certainly know that we, I don't

[01:20:27] expect an answer tonight. I'd be happy to hear about that at a later time. We could for sure look into that and get that, that legal opinion. And I will say that part of our annual inspections is that they, um, they have to validate that all of the playground, the play pad, the equipment is clearly signed so that it indicates that even when we're not in session, that it requires supervision adult supervision so there's some signage that is required or it would fail safety inspection and then we would have those signs um installed but nice on the play equipment itself

[01:21:02] okay and then if i may just one more thing um i the building updates and the this is a hard conversation to have and some of us hear more about it than others just because of the time in which our neighborhoods developed, right? And I will say that I'm very concerned and try to think forward to the time when we did that massive amount of development and built all these schools and how, when we need to renovate those schools, are we going to handle it? So it is something

[01:21:36] that our constituents feel very deeply, the difference between how some schools in the county present and some school. But I also will say there are some schools that are very old in my district that the community is very loyal to and would be devastated if we did anything to change it. It's a very tough situation. But I hope that we continue to have conversations about how this is transparently done so that we give our constituents really the opportunity to

[01:22:11] understand especially around when they might be on the priority list last year but they're not on the priority list this year and so that's that's something that I would appreciate having the opportunity to continue to work with your team to continue to gain understanding so that we can offer them specific examples so that's something I'll follow up with on that on the side but it is definitely something that I hear from constituents a lot and I think we could offer better understanding um by deepening our conversations so thank you yes mrs griffiths

[01:22:47] thank you madam chair oh my computer just died well i guess my question is for the um living labs um i would think they're more transition center right um you're putting them am i understanding this wrong you're putting them in the high schools um and and if i may before you before you answer that broad run is number one and I'm like where are you putting it where where in broad run are you putting a living lab when they have no room they can't even get storage I'm just trying

[01:23:26] to understand where at broad run you're putting this living lab if you could just give me an idea but also again I just want to point out I feel like they're more for the transition center we're going to have to help our students be independent so if you could just go through that with me i would appreciate it yes so i will get a a full explanation i'll get with uh miss richardson and her team and talk through that there is a need at the high schools and it is planned to be done at the high schools and at each of the schools we are working with the school staff to identify

[01:24:06] a school a classroom that would be utilized and renovated for those spaces if we have a school that doesn't have it, we know that we have a secondary boundary that's going to equalize those things. And so over time, we may have to schedule that through that process. But right now, we'll come back to you on December 1 with a little more thorough plan of what the need is and why it's not considered a duplication for the transition center and what the need is at each school.

[01:24:33] And I don't know that we've identified all the classrooms in each of the schools at this point because that's an ongoing project. But we'll get a more up-to-date information on the status of where we are. If I may add one more thing, I have to look at the enrollment for Broad Run.

[01:24:54] It might be at capacity because we did put an addition there to work with that overcapacity. I'm just trying to figure out what room, and you're going to get back to me on this, but what room we would take over for that.

[01:25:10] As you know, I've had theater students that, as I mentioned, need storage. And if you go ahead and put an independent living lab, I think they're going to be scratching their heads. Whether you're taking over a classroom or building something, I think they're going to be scratching their heads why they have to keep asking for certain renovations and storage.

[01:25:38] I want to throw the storage out there again. really need storage thank you and as we talk we'll provide a more thorough assessment on that but I will point out that broad run is listed in the first year and by 27 for a look at the storage solutions as well but two other schools for this year any other questions no okay I guess we're done with this work

[01:26:14] session if we don't have any more questions from anyone thank you so much for all your work and care on this it's really appreciated Dr. Spence would like to say something yeah just as we're wrapping up thank you for your questions and just a reminder if you have other questions before the next hearing if you could just please send them along to mr. Lewis and we will capture those and bring that information back both in writing and for further discussion at the next hearing we appreciate it thanks for that reminder appreciate it

[01:26:49] Okay, seeing as there's no more business, the November 10th, 2025 Louton County School Board work session for the FY 2027, FY 2032 capital budget hearing and work session is now adjourned. Please drive safely home.

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