Coraggio Consulting
Prince William County School Board Work Session, Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Place: Prince William County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 59m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBAIwdB0MiI
Official School Board page (PWCS): https://www.pwcs.edu/about/school_board/

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 2026-11-02. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] the Prince William County School Board will now come to order motion is in order for the approval of the meeting agenda Ms. Zargarpur Mr. Chairman I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the meeting agenda as recommended all in favor aye any opposed no opposition motion passes unanimously moving on to 2.01 proposed CIP for 2025 to 2029 I will turn the meeting over to superintendent dr. McDade at this time doctor okay we should probably waited for dr. McDade I don't know I thought she was there that's my

[00:00:43] fault okay all right we'll take it two minutes until we see mrs. dr. McDade oh there's actually sorry I was turning the meeting over to you dr. McDade did not realize you were not sitting in front of me no that's my fault I didn't good evening good evening all right so we'll get started with our capital improvement program or CIP which is a management tool for planning the projects needed to house our students adequately. Annual review of the CIP enables the division to address changing enrollment patterns and utilize facilities in ways

[00:01:20] consistent with sound educational practice. Thus the CIP provides really a blueprint for new construction, renovations, and specific projects in response to our growing student body. Our CIP is reflective of the vision, mission, values, and commitments within our strategic plan. I'm really proud of the fact that everything that you'll see in our budget and in our CIP is driven by a strategic plan commitment to positive climate and culture is where we lay the foundation for welcoming environments conducive to learning and building responsibility and sustainable facilities commitment for organizational coherence is where we ensure strategic priorities are driving our investments

[00:01:59] toward addressing growth funding renovation projects to existing facilities and focusing on advancing sustainability goals so at this time I would like to welcome our chief operating officer Vernon Bach and chief financial officer Shaquille Youssef and I would like for you to introduce your team that's here as well as they will be presenting the proposed capital improvements improvement program for fiscal years of 2025 to 29 so I'll turn it over now to you Mr. Bach. Thank you Dr. McDade and good evening Chairman Lateef board members we do have members of our team we have Heather Dietz who is

[00:02:38] our Director of Facilities. We have Dr. Matt Cartlidge, who's our Supervisor of Planning, and Dave Beavers here with us tonight, who is our Supervisor of Financial Services with Facilities. We do have Shaquille Youssef here with us as our CFO. I will say each year we begin a collaboration between the Finance Department and the Facilities Department to develop a capital improvement program to strategically plan and manage the construction renovation and maintenance of our physical facilities the CIP is a comprehensive long-term

[00:03:14] plan that addresses the district's infrastructure needs and supports its educational goals I do want to mention this year it is new that we will be presenting to you a five-year plan in years past it's been a 10-year plan and what we've recognized as a team and which is consistent with best practice is is really developing a five-year plan because as we get further out past the five years our enrollment data becomes less accurate at helping us predict the future so it is consistent with most districts and so what we are presenting

[00:03:51] to you tonight is a five-year plan here's some of the key reasons I just want to review those quickly of why we engage in capital improvement planning and as student enrollment changes and fluctuates schools may need to expand or we may need to build new facilities to meet those changing populations existing school buildings and facilities require ongoing maintenance and periodic upgrades to ensure they remain safe functional and conducive to effective teaching and learning and the CIP outlines the necessary improvements to address issues

[00:04:27] issues such as aging infrastructure, safety concerns, and technology integration. With a growing emphasis on environmental sustainability, we plan for energy efficient upgrades and the incorporation of environmentally friendly practices in the CIP.

[00:04:45] This can involve initiatives such as installing solar panels, upgrading HVAC systems, and implementing energy efficient lighting. And finally, it really aids us in budget planning and it serves as a financial tool helping the school district allocate funds over an extended period of time to prioritize construction projects, renovations and maintenance.

[00:05:07] So it really does allow us for the prioritization of projects based on immediate needs and long term goals. So in summary, the capital improvement program is a planning document for our division and provides a roadmap for the development and maintenance of our school facilities ensuring they meet the evolving needs of students, educators, and the community. I want to expressly again thank Shaquille, our CFO, and my team for the true collaboration that's occurred over the last several weeks in developing the plan you have with you or in front of you tonight. So what you see on the screen is our agenda tonight so we'll get into sharing a little bit with you about our

[00:05:46] process and I've gone over some of the key factors in developing the CIP. We will review project highlights of what we have completed while what's currently in process and what some of the projects that we may have out to bid. We'll discuss some of the factors that really influence our CIP and Dr. Cartlidge is going to get into some changing enrollment trends that we are seeing here in Northern Virginia and specifically Prince William County. We'll get into what we're proposing to the board in the way of construction, renovation, and maintenance, and then next steps.

[00:06:20] Next slide. So again, I kind of reviewed a little bit of what our CIP plan is. Again, I want to highlight with you or to you tonight, it is a five-year plan. It is based on our enrollment and changes with enrollment, and it really focuses on, you know, what are our school capacities?

[00:06:39] Where do we need to enhance capacity to meet the changing needs of our school division? And so we basically follow the same methodology every year in analyzing student enrollment data and projections, review available funding, continue focus on maintaining our portfolio of existing facilities and infrastructure.

[00:07:02] And our goal is really, and this year you'll see and hear about something new, it's a facilities condition index. And we really leverage this tool to help us prioritize renovating our schools based on objective measures and needs.

[00:07:17] It does incorporate components of our strategic plan, as you heard from Dr. McDade, and it really does reflect our school division's commitment towards sustainability initiatives. You know, again, Dr. McDade touched on the two strategic plan initiatives that we really highlight throughout the strategic plan, and it's really developing facilities that are welcoming, safe, and sustainable.

[00:07:45] and then promoting that organizational coherence that our strategic priorities are really driving our investments. And you can see here, here's some of the areas of focus throughout the CIP, really highlighting and incorporating a division-wide maintenance and facility plan, a real focus on high-quality learning experiences that promote environmental literacy, project-based learning and utilizing the school building as a teaching tool, incorporating high performance building design, and base CIP investments on that facilities condition index that I mentioned earlier.

[00:08:25] I'm gonna turn it over to Heather now to highlight some of our new construction projects and some of our other projects. - Good evening. First, we'd like to celebrate and take some time for new facility construction recently completed. The brand new build of the Innovation Elementary School is shown at the top, as well as the Independent Hill transportation garage for servicing a lot of our fleet, which is located on Independent Hill.

[00:08:50] New facility construction that is under construction, we have Woodbridge Area Elementary School, you'll see activity there in the photo, as well as projects under design, Occoquan Elementary School replacement. It is our first net zero school that will be built and it is going out to bid in the next month.

[00:09:05] And the Potomac Shores Area Elementary School, which is currently in design. Renovation projects recently completed, Hilton High School, Parkside Middle, Signal Hill and Bristow Run Elementary Schools. We are doing closeout items, but you can see some sneak peeks inside of those renewed facilities.

[00:09:23] In progress on schedule for fall 25 completion are Cedar Point and Swans Creek Elementary Schools. And upcoming in design will be Brentsville Transportation Center and Graham Park Middle School receiving renovations. Minor projects that we have a number of throughout our program include a cosmetology lab renovation at Woodbridge, multiple turf fields, concession buildings, and window replacements, referred to as fenestration projects.

[00:09:50] And you can see on the right-hand side, the recently completed Brentsville High School practice field turf since the last CIP. As part of the ongoing LED upgrade program, which improves classroom lighting and results in energy savings, this year's CIP will feature Woodbridge, Garfield, Potomac, and Patriot High Schools, as well as solar installations on the rooftops of Battlefield High School and Beville Middle School, which are not funded from the CIP, but they are in our power purchasing agreement.

[00:10:21] They are part of our sustainability initiative. Also HVAC replacement, so your heating, venting and air conditioning using geothermal technology. So these are wells in the ground used for just newer technology and more efficient energy use at Bel Air Elementary, which is currently being constructed in the rear yard of the school.

[00:10:42] And then Washington Reed pre-K center will be upcoming. We've started with test pits there. Roofing projects completed since the last CIP include Forest Park and Osborne Park heists shown on these slides. And in progress is Ripon Middle School for a roof replacement.

[00:11:02] HVAC projects, here we have many HVAC partial and full replacement projects throughout the county. Many of these were funded by state grants issued during the pandemic. And you see those completed on the left-hand side, as well as many more currently in progress.

[00:11:19] School maintenance and repair that you'll see throughout the program and facilities, and this CIP include a variety of projects such as asphalt upgrades, again, the windows and HVAC, kitchen upgrades, skylights and gutters, and Title IX improvements.

[00:11:35] And I'll now turn it over to Dr. Cartlidge to discuss enrollment. - Thank you. Chairman Lateef, members of the board, Dr. McDade, I'm Matt Cartlidge, I work in the facilities department working with enrollment forecasting, redistricting, and a few other projects in CIP this evening with you all.

[00:11:51] I want to bring your awareness, not only the board, but the members of the public and administration to some trends that we're observing in Northern Virginia specific to K-12 enrollment and specific to Prince William County. Prepared for you on this slide is a visualization of the structure of our grade cohorts in PWCS.

[00:12:13] So each grade is represented by a single bar and the value in the center of that bar represents how many students were enrolled in that grade on September 30th of this school year. You can see, for example, that 12th grade has just under 7,000 students.

[00:12:32] And then if you go to the bottom of the chart, you can see kindergarten has just over 5,700. When you begin to look at that relative size of each of those grade levels and you begin to think in your mind's eye how those would progress forward one grade higher each year as we move forward in time, you might be able to see in your mind's eye that our enrollment would be decreasing assuming all other factors stay constant.

[00:12:59] The structure is top-heavy. We have larger, upper grade-level cohorts being replaced by smaller cohorts. I want to spend a few slides talking about the components of population change specific to our region and specific to K-12 enrollment.

[00:13:19] Interestingly to a demographer, like myself, or a geographer, the first time that population decline was recorded since the early 1970s in Northern Virginia happened recently, a year over year decrease in population.

[00:13:37] That's an indicator that something different is at play in terms of how population is exhibiting in our region, and we need to be listening to it and in tune with it. So you might be wondering, well, how does population decline happen in the nation's capital?

[00:13:54] Well, one of the things at play is out-migration, and that's a term where people in Northern Virginia relocating elsewhere more so than people are locating into our region. So where might they be going? One place is the exurbs, which is just outside of where we live. We're the suburbs, part of the DC metro. A metro is defined by at least 50 percent of the population is commuting into the urban core, so we're part of the DC metro. Just outside of us are the exurbs, so Stafford County, Vaughan Keir

[00:14:28] County. That's one of the places that Northern Virginians are relocating. They're also relocating farther away to the Greater Richmond area as evidenced on the map that we've presented to you that blue region is the Greater Richmond metro region. Many are relocating there for a variety of reasons, one of which a relatively cheaper cost of living. Additionally, people are actually relocating even farther south towards the Carolinas, Charlotte, Raleigh, the Research Triangle area and those other growing metros. What we're also observing through the data is that

[00:15:06] this out-migration is somewhat selected, meaning that younger families appear to be the ones who are relocating, as evidenced by every single county in the Commonwealth. The median age of that county is actually older now than it was just a decade ago. So Virginia as a whole is becoming more aged. The last element that we want to focus on, which is very relevant to a K-12 organization, is that nationwide there is an overall decreasing trend observed in birth rates. As specific to Prince William County, we've charted for you on the lower left there the overall trend since 2012,

[00:15:45] and you can see an overall decreasing trend. I will bring your awareness to the births that we see in 2021 and 2022 the years kind of part of the pandemic you see a little uptick there with a few hundred students just bring your awareness to that because we're going to circle back to that in a few more slides when we talk about elementary projections another element that is relevant to k-12 projections is how many new housing units are being constructed in our county in those years leading up to the Great Recession, it was characteristic for us to be observing 4,000,

[00:16:25] 5,000 new housing units in a single year. In more recent times since 2018, like we have charted up here to the left of the red line, you can see an overall decreasing trend and you can also observe that the absolute values of these is about, you know, 1,500 or less new housing units per year.

[00:16:46] Consequently, as new housing units yield students, when you are constructing fewer housing units in the county we are receiving fewer student yields from new housing so so far we've touched on out migration decreasing birth rates and lower amounts of residential construction all of those things make enrollment growth more difficult for our organization of course please so I was doing a little research on this out migration because now I'm obsessed with this so I just noticed so I was just became aware that the census puts out information weekly

[00:17:21] And so a few days ago, there was an article in Cardinal News that said that the out-migration has almost reversed, and it's trending in an opposite direction. Are we factoring in these updates when we look at the population trends? How often do we look at that?

[00:17:38] Because it's changed significantly since the beginning of January to now. Absolutely. There's a seasonality to migration, of course, not just over years, but also intra-year as well. when we do enrollment projections we take a snapshot of the data that's available to us in early October so up until that point we use all the most relevant and recent data because when we do a projection we are projecting student enrollment on the subsequent September 30th when all of the allocations for the school funding is based upon so that's the benchmark that

[00:18:13] we are forecasting everything that happens after september 30th all of those processes and factors that are at play those all get wrapped into the next year so this potential reversal that you're mentioning if it becomes the new trend then that's what's going to inform our projections that we calculate this coming october for the next five years yeah thank you are we taking questions now

[00:18:44] we can yeah uh just a question about multiple families uh there's a trend as i see that where it used to be you had your mother your father and the kids now it's the mother and father kids and their kids and so forth does that have any any impact it is and in the past we're going to discuss on this slide some enhancements and revisions and a redesign that we did to our projection model in the past we captured those multiple families occupying a single-family residence by how many students were yielded from a certain

[00:19:24] number of houses so some neighborhoods would have more students per household per house on average because of that factor that you were just identifying the way that our model works now it is a progression of students from one grade to the next. So we really, we don't concern ourselves as much by how many students are in each individual house. We concern ourselves with how many students are in a school's attendance area. And we're going to progress all of those students forward based on historical progression

[00:20:00] ratios. So either way, we would be capturing that nuance. So as I was, thank you for the segue, that's a perfect plant we have made some enhancements to our projection model one of which that I started to introduce is a shift from a housing unit based method to one that is the gold standard for k-12 enrollment projections and it is either called the cohort survival method or grade progression ratio method

[00:20:33] the newly adopted model incorporates some controls in it that allows us to address the students that are coming from new residential construction as that is an element in various spots peppered throughout our county so the model is sensitive to students that are coming from new construction so that we don't overestimate how many students are coming in the pipeline once that community or communities is built out speaking of these communities we are now using the historical rates of construction for each of these

[00:21:10] communities to inform how many housing units from a community we anticipate to be constructed next year the following year and the year after that when we talk about projecting enrollment for the entire division which is very important and relevant to our budgetary process we are now using a bottom-up approach that means that we start with forecasting all of our schools first and And then we sum up all of the school's projections to then determine what the division-wide projections are going to be.

[00:21:47] When we think about our model, you've probably heard the idiom before that if you put junk in, junk comes out. And so what we are doing to give our model the best opportunity to project the future accurately, we are feeding more data into the model so that it's equal to the number of years that we're asking it to produce into the future.

[00:22:11] For example, for elementary and middle schools, we are projecting five years into the future, so we provide five years of historical data into the model, seven years for high schools. The redesign model also has various elements of subjectivity removed from it from our previous model.

[00:22:33] One thing that we're pretty excited about, and we've provided a graphic on the slide for you here to review, is that we are now for the first time using address level data of historical live births before we were using births only at the countywide level to provide a projection of kindergarteners for the entire division but then the question begs itself where are these kindergarteners going to be which schools so now that we have address level data this is informing the kindergarten projections at each school so we can better capture all the

[00:23:07] nuances that occur throughout our county the excuse me the last element that we have done as an enhancement is when we do projections we are now projecting the resident population so where students actually reside rather than which school they attend and when we do these projections at the neighborhood level or small geography scale we are able to do the projections without any interference of the school's net transfer rate because as board members, you recognize that some schools act as magnets and other schools have places where the transfer rate reduces their

[00:23:45] overall enrollment. Our projection model now allows us to project students at the neighborhood level without the transfer rate incorporated. With that being said, we have prepared a graphic illustration for each of the school levels for projections.

[00:24:02] The figures to the left of the red line represent our historical data, and the figures to the right represent our projections. We'll move through these one by one. The highest line is our elementary level. Constitutes sixth grade level, so we constantly have the largest number of students in there.

[00:24:23] What I want you to walk away with is that at the elementary level, for the next four years, we are projecting an overall decreasing trend. And if you recall back to what I mentioned earlier, you know, pay particular attention to that little uptick in the number of births you can see for the 28 school year in our fifth year projection a slight uptick in elementary projection as the model is responding to that marginal increase in birth rates the orange line represents the middle school projections overall we're estimating and projecting a decreasing trend at the high school level you'll see an overall

[00:25:00] decreasing trend you also will see two additional years of projections in there that will allow us to better prepare for the expansion of high schools if necessary this is a new slide that I want to bring your awareness to there are many students that we provide education to that are outside of schools that have traditional attendance areas these include our PK students and some other programs to try to be more clear and less ambiguous with what our overall enrollment is we

[00:25:38] are beginning to project all PK students into our projections what you're seeing on your slide here is historical data of students that fit into this particular category in partnering with our office of special education we are aware that a large uptick in a number of early childhood special education or ECSC students is anticipated in the upcoming years. Those are factored into our projections now and you will see the uptick that crosses the red line as we are anticipating more

[00:26:14] students in this category before it levels off in about 20, 25, 26. When we factor in these additional students, the trends that we're showing is an increase in enrollment next year, but that's primarily driven by the uptick in early childhood special education PK students.

[00:26:40] The overall projection trend that our model is suggesting for the next five years is an overall decrease in enrollment by about 420 students over these next several years. As Mr.

[00:26:59] Bach indicated, we're being mindful of what the enrollment data and what the components of population change are suggesting for Northern Virginia. And we're going to walk through a few of the CIP projects that are most relevant to these changes in enrollment trends We prepared on this slide a map of the county with the magisterial district shown and our Plans in the proposed CIP and a few elements from our previously approved CIP are shown in this map And we're going to go through the 14th high school

[00:27:35] Renovations at Brentsville, an addition at the Noakesville School, the new elementary school in Potomac Shores area, a proposed global welcome center in the Manassas region, and then additions related to PK expansion.

[00:27:52] The first item is the 14th high school. In the approved CIP, the plan was for the school to open in 2026 because of a variety of construction reasons that was earlier this year delayed to 2027.

[00:28:12] The school was proposed and approved to be constructed with a capacity of 2,557 seats. The table that we provided on this slide, the first element that I want to bring your attention to are the red figures at the top of the chart.

[00:28:31] Those represent the total number of students exceeding the combined capacity of those seven existing schools. So you can see in 2023, our current school year, we're about 631 students above what the combined capacity is for our seven existing high schools in this region.

[00:28:51] As you look across the chart to the right, those are the projections moving out into the future, seven years in total. You can see that the high school enrollment decreases a little bit and then comes up to about where we are in 2023.

[00:29:07] In the lower portion you'll see that the construction of the 14th high school has been proposed to be a two-year delay and the size of the high school has been proposed to be reduced from 2,557 to a smaller design as we're being mindful that in total these schools are about 600 students over capacity.

[00:29:35] The data are not suggesting that we need to construct 2,500 seats when our deficit is about 600. Being mindful of the data, we are proposing to delay the school to continue to monitor these enrollment trends, as well as right-size the size of the school and decrease it from over 2,500 to something that is more in alignment with the deficit that we're identifying.

[00:30:01] We also want to take this additional time to explore the feasibility of constructing classroom additions at some of our area schools that are overcrowded including Colgan, Forest Park, and Freedom High School. The addition that we're going to review at Colgan is intended to house the students that are assigned to it, not with the intent to add more neighborhoods to Colgan.

[00:30:27] Currently the school has about 2,500 students who live within its attendance area and the school's capacity is just over 2,000 the question so with regard to this and I'm most of you will be familiar with the question I'm about to ask if you've been here for a while I'm still very concerned about not incorporating our program capacity because that affects where students go and how the building is utilized itself instead of just butts in a seat and I think that's becoming more and more particularly prevalent at our high school level because students go where their programs are that they're interested in and it also makes a difference on how we utilize the building and so I'm

[00:31:04] concerned not necessarily with reducing the size of the school itself but factoring in that into our decision right because even if we just for fun sake not saying that we will let's say we build this the school and the size that we're planning on it right and then we end up housing additional programs or the flip side is we build a smaller school but then trends change or we add more specialty programs and we have nowhere to house them which is kind of situation we're in with our traditional schools so i'm wondering how has that factored into this

[00:31:42] decision that's being presented to us and when are we ever going to see program capacity for high school so i can stop asking you that question thanks thank you ms williams and first of all the reduced size of the 14th high school is being moved forward with the idea that it has the option for an additional learning wing to be constructed on it so that whether the projections do not come to fruition or whether there are programmatic needs that arise in the school that we need additional classrooms it is being designed with the mindfulness to expand the school and have that opportunity and program

[00:32:21] capacity for high schools is coming we have it for elementary we now have it for middle we have it very near the finish line for high school we recognize that this September 30th our projections were way off they were not industry standard and we prioritized redesigning our projection model because it is one half of this equation for the CIP. The capacity is the denominator and then the projection is the numerator. So without a good numerator and we knew we had problems with the numerator. So we took that as an opportunity to completely redesign it and we're very excited to bring that to the board

[00:33:00] because I think we will be able to move forward with confidence that our methods are industry leading standards and program capacity is coming I just want to thank you for that because I know this has been a years highly emphasized the s on the years long project and even before mr. Bach arrived your team has done an outstanding job of moving the ball forward and so I just want to make sure I take the time to commend you for all the hard work because I know I've been a royal pain about it I don't and I know the least amount of information on how you get your numbers so I really appreciate all of the work and I also appreciate all of the time and effort that went into changing the way that we

[00:33:39] make those calculations and then with the addition of mr. Bach and all the new team members the expanded lens that we are able to now have as a board to make better informed decisions so thank you very much because I know that's a very heavy lift thank you so much yeah I have I have a question also simply the capacity on here is what when you say capacity is that the number of students now or is that the capacity of the building the 1400 represents the proposed no no I'm talking about for on the chart here okay the red figures no the

[00:34:19] first set of numbers where you say capacity I think it's a capacity yeah so that is the permanent planning capacity of each school so that's what we including any portable classrooms okay okay and I have a bunch of little questions about the 14th high school but I'll save it till the end okay we'll be waiting for them yeah did you also look at the county's comprehensive plan in regards to I know I asked this before but I just figured I'd ask it out loud

[00:34:56] here yeah in regards to the land use and the densities and all the you know Proposed housing and things like that in regards to the placement and where the school should go based on the density and things like that so built into our projection model is tracking of all residential Projects in the pipeline when you mentioned the comp plan the comprehensive plan That is the county's vision for long-range land use So that includes places that are not currently zoned to allow a developer to come in and construct residential housing.

[00:35:34] It might be a place where the county's vision is that one day, 25 years in the future, our vision is that that is going to be a residential community. With the temporal scope of our projections being five or seven years in the future, we are using the county's residential inventory data and some of our own supplemental data to build out the projects that have rezoning already in place.

[00:36:00] place what this allows us to do is to make our projections less speculative because the local governing body does not have to step in rezone a parcel of land in order for houses to be constructed and then students yielded from that so all of our projections from new residential construction are of communities that are in the pipeline and have the rezoning already in place We then look comprehensively in the CIP process every year with updated enrollment projections.

[00:36:35] Where are our unmet needs present? And when we see a region, like we're seeing here, that no matter how you redistrict these seven schools, you can't redistrict away the fact that there are 600 more kids than there are seats in these schools.

[00:36:52] That's what then guides us to we need to provide a capital improvement in this region, whether in the form of an addition or a new school or a combination. And there's my segue for my final bullet on this slide. At this opportunity, we're going to explore a variety of mitigating factors.

[00:37:12] We're gonna look at the right size for the 14th high school, we're going to explore classroom additions, and we're also going to be leveraging school redistricting to leverage these spaces once we build the capital improvements.

[00:37:28] - Yes. - Yes. So we have just over 2,500 students residing in Colgan's attendance area as of September 30th of this year.

[00:37:47] The capacity for the school is just over 2,000. That is correct.

[00:38:09] And that is part of, and I'm going to hop to our next slide because that's exactly where the conversation is going. Since she asked about the comp plan, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring this up, and this is not necessarily for an answer,

[00:38:37] But when we do our impact statements to the county, it has just befuddled me for the last six years that we do this line in every single statement that says, oh, we oppose this project because it increases the capacity countywide.

[00:38:53] That is the dumbest thing I continue to say that we do in this work we do. And if you're telling me now that you're able to now tell me neighborhood-wide, school-wide, where our projections are going to be, if that's true, we're going to do that.

[00:39:11] And if we have a comp plan and you're following all these plans, then some of these impact statements should say we support this project because we have not enough students in this area and we can support it. So we've done this generic sort of, we're going to say no to everything because we're overcapacity countywide, right?

[00:39:32] Like, that doesn't make, it's never made sense to me. But I just hope if we're going to use these new technologies and these new data, you know, mining, that we start becoming more thoughtful about the way we approach these impact statements.

[00:39:47] Because I just, I mean, if we're telling them no every time, then you're going to have continued drop in enrollment, and no one's going to build a house in this county. So, Dr. Lateef, if I may just address that, I appreciate that, and that was a concern of ours as well. So we've not, excuse me, not continued that practice of a blanket statement of opposing.

[00:40:05] The only time you would see an opposition and not recommending a development coming in is if the developer was not providing the adequate proffers to the division to address any overcrowding that that might cause within the schools in that area.

[00:40:24] Great, thank you. - Let's go, carry on, Dr. Carlin. - So, 'cause I love this so much and everyone else hates it, but piggybacking on Ms. Wall's statement, I mean, I do feel like the piecemealing that we do when we build a school and we do a boundary and not looking at the surrounding boundaries has become a major deficit to us.

[00:40:43] A, B, the development impact statement, like prior to the joint committee that we had, that Lily and I served on eons ago, there was no communication between the BOCS and the school division. And while I do agree with Chairman Lateef, I think that it's great that we do include that statement.

[00:41:00] I'm excited that we're modifying it. It still doesn't really mean diddly-squat because we're not necessarily assured that we're going to get those proffers. So it may be worth looking at again. I don't know the communication level that we have currently with the Planning Commission and the BOCS and how it's being formatted and given to them because that was also the issue.

[00:41:24] they weren't seeing our responses in a timely manner. And I know that some of that has been updated, but again, since the committee fell apart, I'm not aware, but I'd be hesitant to continue to say, you know, with our revisions, if there's no guarantee that we get those proffers, it's not a guarantee.

[00:41:40] We can, we're not even illegally allowed to ask, and it's still up to the Board of County Supervisors whether they pass through that proffer to us once we put it on the impact statement. So I'm not sure what we can do as we're modernizing our office to modernize that process as well but I do believe it's worth looking at so and say that because nobody likes to talk about those things but it's important I appreciate it thank you just to clarify I'm bringing it up in the context of we currently have under enrolled schools that you don't need a proper for if you're building a neighborhood so there's no reason that the project in that area where we're under enrolled should be tied to even a

[00:42:18] proper because we have capacity so it's even those projects the school division has been giving these impact statements of opposition and and so I think we just have to be careful on that just miss wall and then we'll move on I'm on the topic of Colgan high school with 2500 in its attendance area and the capacity at 2000 if we do add additional classrooms to Colgan I know that the traffic situation is already really bad do we have also some mitigating traffic ideas and maybe that's outside the scope of our conversation but I do know as a parent who attended it had children who attended a very crowded high school for

[00:42:57] a number of years it's a really stressful thing and it decreases the quality of life so to speak how you feel about your school because getting there and taking you know it takes it's easier to get to DC than it is to get to your high school or it takes it long right so is that something we could get more information on now or could you briefly address it now yes because if we increase 800 seats or something like that at Colgan, we're going to have a nightmare on 234.

[00:43:26] Just to, Ms. Walt, we already are overcapacitated though so there's already trailers so they would just add classrooms and get rid of trailers. Oh that's a good point. Right and so the traffic's already bad so you're not going to add any more to that population. Do we have an idea for helping you? Mr. Wilk and then we'll go to the staff. Were they going to answer?

[00:43:42] Yeah. Or is that what they were going to say? Since we're on the topic of building the 14th high school it seems like um post-covid we're seeing trends now where families do not put their kids on the bus for whatever reason and there's this mass exodus of putting the kids on the buses but a huge surge of families taking their kids and dropping them off causing the consternation as we see there with the roads if we look at forest park the backup of sprigs anything that's happening my my question is to get to my question is with these new schools we're designing are we

[00:44:22] factoring in for park at the parking lots in the arrival the new age at least what we're seeing with these trends of parents I mean some get there two hours in advance to pick their kids up it's crazy but are we factoring that in when we're designing these or looking at designing the 14th there's a new Potomac Shores Elementary etc yes and in fact you'll see it first on the new Occoquan replacement as we work to our standard process of design working with the county as well for transportation is to queue on the school site itself to bring people off of the main road with vehicles also for safety and circulation

[00:44:57] in enhancement is to separate bus traffic from kiss and ride from teacher parking so we do have that all factored in you'll see that Occoquan you'll see the Potomac Shores and in all coming future designs we're also working retroactively on other existing schools school by school where we identify a need Gainesville high school is the first one where we've worked with recirculating the buses and trying to relieve that congestion but we are putting that the forefront and for Miss Wall's question we will be investigating the potential of where an addition could even fit most likely as dr. Lateef indicated it would be where the trailers are but it's still under evaluation along with the traffic

[00:45:36] that would go with the potential of whether we can even accommodate a an addition on that site thank you with the two year to school year delay these are some of the things that we are anticipating will be resulting from this additional time we believe that we can use this time to foster collaboration with not only essential stakeholders but also our non-essential stakeholders specifically to the design elements of the school you know that capacity and

[00:46:12] then the features within it the specialty program that might be housed in that school we can have more conversations about what does that look like is it CTE is it something else but that will help us from our projection standpoint because we can kind of speculate you know what is going to be the transfer rate to this new school once we know how it's going to be programmed we can also work with the administration to identify a variety of strategies that we might employ to address some of the leakages that we see in student enrollment from some of our high schools prepared on this slide are the net

[00:46:52] school transfer rates for 2023, and there's a continuum there. If we look at Forest Park at the top of the list, we see 24%, and what that means is that 24% more students attend Forest Park than are assigned to it. Colgan is about 15% more. We can go all the way down the list to Potomac High school and it's minus 26. So that means that 26 percent fewer students this school year attended Potomac than were assigned to it. When we talk about the

[00:47:28] two-year delay you might be wondering well how painful it's going to be for overcrowding at the schools that are overcrowded. When we look at Colgan, Forest Park, and Freedom specifically the two-year delay is about 73 additional students anticipated at Colgan, 27 at Forest Park, and 18 at Freedom. When we start looking at the figures in the lower right-hand corner of the table, you'll see that if we build a school of about 1,400 with these projections, we would anticipate the collective schools, the seven

[00:48:07] existing plus the eighth and the 14th, that's a little confusing, the new school, the new 14th school the schools would be about 96 percent of capacity utilization so in a utopian world or a dream world if transfer rates were all modulated if the boundaries were drawn perfectly by the board and enrollment never changed in this area we know that's not going to happen right like in this dream world every high school would be at about 96 percent of capacity if you constructed a

[00:48:40] 1400 seat school and if these projections came to fruition that's one of the areas that i have a little concern with because you're talking about a school on manyville road or telegraph road the boundaries do not affect colbin it does not affect it probably will affect woodbridge garfield and maybe freedom so when you are saying that this is going to relieve the other schools i don't understand where you're coming up with that because those kids are not coming unless

[00:49:19] there's a really magnet uh specialty program they're not coming over there so am i missing something because everything i saw indicated but you didn't talk about where the kids and if you're talking about 1400 kids you're talking about maybe 600 kids for woodbridge 600 skids from Garfield and maybe a few more from Freedom. So that doesn't relieve a lot of pressure off of

[00:49:57] the other school. 15% is 300 kids out of COVID. So it doesn't, I don't know. Am I missing something? Within these two years we have additional time to explore what that specialty program might be for the 14th high school so we can get a better anticipation of what the pull factor or the magnet is going to be for that school we can also explore additions at other schools that are overcrowded

[00:50:35] that in combination with redistricting when we add 1400 seats to a particular location off of summit school road in minneville colgan's attendance area might not be part of the attendance area that goes to the new school but as you open up that much additional capacity there will be a domino effect where you can push neighborhoods into this new school like we have done whenever we open a new school with this additional time that's why it's important for us to get in front of this and start analyzing and trying to get a better grasp for what is this school's programming going to be so

[00:51:15] that our understanding of what the transfer rates might be can come into play and I think the main thing to understand and there's the piece to note about the domino effect so this isn't about build a high school and and only you know one two or three schools will be impacted all of the schools in this area will be impacted in some way as ms wall pointed out earlier we look at colgan colgan's district is outpacing the size of the school to the point where the school was probably on a trend to be overcrowded after the first year

[00:51:50] so we we do have a problem with some of um our our boundaries and and when we build a new school we can't look at the school in isolation we have to look across the board at all of the boundaries in the area to make sure that we don't have unintended consequences for um the boundaries that we place at the new school so it is really um important especially the the numbers are the numbers across this commonwealth and across the country the school age population is declining

[00:52:25] that's real we heard from the researcher from uva which is why i invited him to come forward to share with you all and we do have to be responsible in how we build so we don't find ourselves at a place where we have multiple instead of the problem which is kind of a good problem to have over capacity we don't want to find ourselves in a place where we have so many schools that are underutilized and now we've built all these facilities and we can't sustain ourselves financially so it is the responsible thing for us to do to study this so that we don't negatively impact the existing schools we have if we jump

[00:53:04] out too quickly to try to build a new school without all of the data that and information that we need to make a sound decision and that decision is not just about the 14th high school that decision is also about all of the other schools in the surrounding area where we will have to impact their boundaries as a result of creating an attendance boundary for the new school so that's what we're trying to propose to you now is the level of responsibility and care that we have to take in light of the fact that our projected population growth has

[00:53:41] changed and it does not look the same as it did over the last decade where population growth was booming and we were building you know year over year we're just not in the same place as a county and so we have to shift our thinking in our approach and how we do this yeah i i i think i understand what you're saying and i just in my mind i see i understand the trickle down effect

[00:54:17] And I see that that is going to impact all the schools. But the majority of the schools impacted will not be...

[00:54:33] The wave only goes out so far from the source of the pebble dropping in the water. And this drop into Occoquan District will only go so far. And, you know, I understand and I can see that it's probably wise to go from 2,500 down to 14.

[00:54:53] but it's this I'm just having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that this is gonna have an impact on Kogan and so the schools it's hard hard to visualize that we're gonna pivot over to the Brentsville district to begin discussion of a another element of our CIP that is in response to changing enrollment trends the current situation is that by 2028 29 school year the

[00:55:31] Noakesville school which is located adjacently to Brentsville district high school is projected to be about 561 students over capacity we will need approximately 30 additional classrooms by this point in time to adequately house our projected student population the solution that we're proposing is to construct classroom additions at the Noakesville school and at this time I Also, because of the proximity of Brentsville District High and this growing enrollment trend that we're seeing at the K-8 level,

[00:56:07] Brentsville District High shares a lot of the same attendance area with the Noakesville School. So as was mentioned earlier in our presentation, the prioritization of renovations in PWCS has shifted for the better to become more data centric and using a facility condition assessment to prioritize when school renovations take place. You can think of it as you know a group of engineers and architects they physically visit our schools they look at the structure they estimate the cost for identified

[00:56:44] repairs and enhancements and then they use that as the numerator and the denominator is what's replacement cost of the school. The newer schools would consequently have fewer repairs needed because it's mostly brand new, right? So you have a lower score or a zero. When we had Brinsville District High School assessed, it provided an assessment score that in and of itself supported a delay for its renovation. Since that assessment was conducted, an additional 3.3 million dollars has been invested in the building, primarily in the HVAC department.

[00:57:22] So kind of, again, back to that formula, if you put more money into it and you're improving and enhancing some of these big-ticket items, consequently, its assessment score is going to improve, which would further support delaying the renovation of the high school. That is one element that we're being mindful about.

[00:57:40] The other element, as I was alluding to at the Noakesville School, sharing a lot of the same attendance area if we do see a large flow of students progressing into Brentsville High as our projections are suggesting that over the next seven years we're anticipating about 25 seats empty in the 2030 year we could then time a renovation for the school with classroom additions if the enrollment data support this so we will continue to monitor the enrollment at the high school level and then later as we revisit the CIP each year and bring it

[00:58:19] back to the board we'll then advise whether or not it makes sense to propose classroom additions at Brentsville High and marry that at the same time as its renovation do we have a similar situation with the Noakesville school as Colgan where we have more kids zoned for the Noakesville school then we have capacity for is that basically what yeah it's not being driven by transfers into the school it's just overall growth it's just growth in the area just growth in the area as the county has revisited

[00:58:58] development practices in the rural crescent as a function of just more houses being constructed in the area it's growing and what about the neighboring is the growth in the elementary or middle or is it kind of spread so on the on the graphic we have 399 seats over capacity at the elementary and about 162 at the middle and we have to remember that this school is a k-8 so the board has developed the attendance areas for the elementary portion and the middle portion to be coincident with each other so if we do redistricting you need to send both elementary and middle

[00:59:37] away yeah and with all that being said we feel that you know the growth is happening in the Nokesville's attendance area it is recommended to build an addition for that school okay we'll swing over to the Potomac district in the approved CIP we have the construction of a second elementary school within the Potomac Shores community this is scheduled to open for 27 28 school year its proposed capacity is currently 721 and when we look at the

[01:00:15] Cherry Hill CIP planning region on this table prepared for you in the lower left if you focus on the 2028 projection you'll see that collectively these schools even after the new school opens in 27 is projected to be about 291 students over capacity it's another situation where you can't read district away the overcrowding because you have more students than you have spaces. We're being mindful of these enrollment trends and are proposing to the board that we increase the size of the Potomac Shores Elementary School from 721 to 1050

[01:00:54] seats. It's important to note that that would become the largest elementary school in the division by about a hundred seats or so. Right now at Covington Harper we have about just about 950 students so it's not terribly different from what the school is already operating at in the Covington Harper school I have a question so when we talk about expanding this school I know that the Potomac Shores areas is still going to continue to build so that's something that we need to think about and impact this but I'm also

[01:01:34] concerned because schools like River Oaks and Dumfries, Swans Creek Triangle, Mary Williams, is there an opportunity to have some impact with redistricting? How will the new Woodbridge Elementary School impact that? I imagine that you know some of these schools are Title I some of them are not so that also makes a difference in you know the student population how many kids you gonna put in a classroom all that good jazz so and schools like what I think it's triangle which one is it Justin you know more than I do triangle or Dumfries like

[01:02:09] the schools like what 200 years old it's like old so are there any considerations I know it's oh I don't know if it's a hundred I think Aquan is a hundred but it's yeah it's close to a hundred but are there considerations for modernizing perhaps that building like we did with Kilby where we did a rebuild so that we don't necessarily have to have an elementary school of that size that's a lot of students but again like I'm not geographically familiar with how much of the subdivision itself right in and around that vicinity is going to expand but I would think that that we would I'm

[01:02:48] sure that's why I was like Justin you can help me you know I just want to I would like to be more educated and be more mindful about it because I know that the subdivision is going to expand but we also have elementary schools in the surrounding area that are really outdated and very very small I'll take one of those questions and then I'll defer to our director of facilities for the renovation element the first part of your question was if you open another school that's larger will that offer a recurring relief to the surrounding schools and the answer is yes if we look at our chart up here collectively

[01:03:24] these schools are about 300 students over capacity so we're proposing to add a little more than that to the new school so that as a result through redistricting we can reassign neighborhoods and strive for an optimized distribution of the students among the schools the read I mean there's not much that school is built specifically for that pretty much that subdivision because of the amount of growth that's going to occur within the subdivision as was Covington Harper when we opened it up as a proper from

[01:03:58] Potomac Shores now if you kind of think about the geography there the Covington harper school is farther out as a harbor station harbor yes it's farther out away from the concentration or core of potomac shores so without you know going through the redistricting process with the community you can kind of think in your mind's eye we're kind of flipping those two attendance areas what used to be coming in harper and potomac shores now becomes potomac shores number two which then opens up you know seven eight hundred seats at covington harper to then

[01:04:33] start offering overcrowding relief to Dumfries and Triangle and River Oaks because I'm also concerned because Dumfries has a tendency to build stuff and then tell us later like with their newer apartments because I know that I'm just saying like we have we've had some issues in the past through so I'm just concerned about building a big elementary school within that town center but we still then need additional seats at like Triangle Elementary or Dumfries Elementary and not thinking about in the future if we should be doing like a Kilby rebuild I'm sorry I'm gonna shut up cuz I know you know and that's that's the part that's the purpose of us coming back to you every year with the CIP and studying

[01:05:13] those trends and making these recommendations to the board and the second part of your question miss Williams was around you know the age of some of our buildings and you know although through a facilities condition index the infrastructure may and the bones the mechanicals may be in good shape however that the educational space may not be up to par so the second phase of the facilities condition index is adding the educational space audit so our our vendor RMM is engaging with us and adding that space educational space audit as part of the facilities condition index giving us a much more

[01:05:49] well-rounded and even more objective measure so for a school that could hit and say it's in really good shape and the bones are really good but it's not really meeting the educational standards of today we can still move forward and have an objective measure that we need to renovate this school so that's coming do we know like is it like a two-year like a I'm not gonna hold you to the time I'm just curious yeah we're still as far as the educational component we're still receiving the data and that will better inform next year's CIP we just don't have it at this point for this year's CIP I appreciate that because it's an adjustment for us in this new process as well yeah I just want to

[01:06:28] touch on a couple things with Dumfries Elementary because this is something I've been talking about so historically my predecessor during the last renovation had a chance to do some major renovations to the building but she opted to keep a lot of the historical feel of the building resulting in different things occurring my understanding is when I was advocating for this I thought there was maybe potentially money saved because they didn't go that full route but I've been you know informed that the same amount of money allocated to a renovation still occurred the Dumfries Elementary despite not necessarily doing any type of rebuild the other thing it's landlocked so you can't do the

[01:07:07] traditional like Kilby rebuild because you got the slave cemetery and then residential housing we would have to basically buy all those people's properties or something like that so it's it's a more complicated thing then and I agree with you it's something you know I think it was even I had talked to supervisor Bailey and she brought it up on the budget meeting last year at the presentation about the need for Dumfries but again I think there's limited options with that that was gonna be one thing since we're on this Potomac thing the other thing is you know I'm one thing I'm not trying to be peevish about

[01:07:43] the I'm concerned about the high school possibly being pushed back in this for two years specifically you know because on paper it looks great to say like we can maybe stop this this this net change you know Forest Park versus like a Potomac and stuff like that by redrawing boundaries and stuff like that but it's very different when those people come to the boardroom and you have hundreds of people who are very angry potentially that if we take that 24 let's say from Forest Park Park down to even 10 that's a couple hundred

[01:08:20] families that are gonna I understand that but in my point is it's it's a lot easier from this side you know say oh this is going to be something sure you know and it could be the same for Colgan and such like that but then when you actually think about the impact on your constituents it's not then I think of it as a representative of them you know I have to represent their needs as well I you know and this has been a big thing that I've been trying to really kind of parcel out of my mind of why why is Potomac so under capacity why is there this need and the newer developments that we're alluding to why don't their

[01:08:58] families want to send their kids to Potomac and and well I have some ideas too but anecdotally you know I've had conversations with that and I think you know the the administration there has done a pretty good job going out there and trying to be out and about in the community meet with the HOA there and try to expand more what we're doing in Potomac because there are a lot of great things happening in Potomac great culinary program I've you know I wonder sometimes about the Cambridge thing attracting people to go there but I guess I'm not actually asking a question for that I'm just bringing up a point about the specialty programs because it's like the tale of two cities in my

[01:09:36] district you got Forest Park and then you got Potomac and one has a major net decrease one has a major increase I don't I guess I didn't really have a question do you want this is not necessarily a CIP discussion right now this is you know talking about like the quality of the specialty program those are all things that we would have to have a conversation about in terms of improvements with instructional program programming as it relates to facilities um i do want to point out i know you said you had concerns about reducing the size of the the new 14th high school but we also have to consider that we need

[01:10:13] to really do a deep dive study on what happened with unity read when we did the same thing with with the opening of Gainesville and Patriot, right? And so the two years gives us an opportunity to really study what the implications are when you open a new facility and you change boundaries, what happens to the existing schools?

[01:10:36] And we don't have those answers. And what I don't want us to do is repeat some, there's some lessons to be learned, and I don't think that we know what those lessons are, and I don't want us to repeat maybe some mistakes that were made in a similar situation when we can do this the right way.

[01:10:57] I will tell you that the surrounding schools are concerned about the new shiny building and what that does to their programming, their attendance boundaries, et cetera. So we wanna be responsible in this because it could be even more, the impacts could even be more severe because we're coupling now the fact that we have reduced or a lower projected population in the future.

[01:11:24] So there's a lot of unknowns here that I feel like we should take the time to investigate and be well informed. This is a very serious decision. It's a lot of money on the table for this. And if we do decide to move forward and build, we have to do it in good conscience that we've done the right thing for our communities.

[01:11:47] - I just have one last thing for them - So make sure, the other thing that I wanted us to be mindful of is that we do, with the older schools, the problem we're seeing now is like when we have our drills and having enough space in for students too. So I just wanna make sure that we're thinking, and I'm sure we are, but I just wanna vocalize it, that 15, 20 years down the road, we have a tornado drill.

[01:12:09] All of our kids can fit in the building for the tornado drill. I mean, there was no crystal ball. We didn't look at things the way that we do now back then. but i think that's also important and that's why i bring up some of the older schools and considering some renovations to them and then with that it's not really cip related but there were other things that happened too justin like garfield got a culinary program so those things when we look at our decisions for down the road i hope that we incorporate those as well not just the new school factor which is a major factor but like how the program shift and where the students went when that occurred too because prior to this year i think last year garfield didn't even have a

[01:12:45] a culinary program so it wasn't an option for students if you're on the eastern end you only had Potomac to go to so I'm glad that we're taking a more holistic approach yeah that would be a part of the two-year study to looking at transfers and specialty programs and because the answer is not always just put a specialty program in the school right kind of to the point that mr.

[01:13:07] Roof just made you know Potomac has an amazing several amazing specialty programs and so that's a part of the two-year study mr. Wilk will sorry questions and then we'll move on to the next slide no no no for time sake no no no I mean I want you to finish this Potomac area we're on here on this do you have any more questions on this topic here for your district yeah I guess my point with Forest Park necessarily was just to say with CIP wise changing the the number and the percentages was my concern broadly and then so I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.

[01:13:43] I didn't clarify that. And then Potomac Shores Elementary, obviously I'm very aesthetic about the proposed size increase. I think that's needed. And as you said to Ms. Williams about the adjustment and shuffling people 'cause Covington Harper, you know, I think opened at what, 25% under capacity.

[01:14:02] And although the CIP projected growth, and one thing I often regret is that we should have maybe made it even bigger, but it is what it is. so i'm happy this time we are going to kind of you know right the wrongs with that and build a bigger building one thing i do have to ask uh verne just because it's going to come up again i see it's 27 28 there's also often a push to try to make this sooner because i understand everything is happening back there and that was a huge topic uh this summer with the arrival of trailers um in a high level why right now logistically is trying to move it up an additional

[01:14:39] year not really possible in the city well there's there's some constraints and working through some road vacation there with V dot and then putting additional infrastructure in place to gain access to the site and we're really bound by a timeline with V dot with that in the developer we've tried to push in that area without some success we're still optimistic that we can push in and maybe get a better result but but as of right now that's that's our current timeline okay I just want to clarify because a lot of people are saying it's us that's

[01:15:13] the problem okay thank you this is just kind of a comment but I I have when I look at this map with like we have areas that are dark green next to areas that are red I'm so it and I have areas in my district that are a little bit like that you know schools that are very low birth rates so and their elementary schools so my question is and maybe it's just a comment but the I know that I've talked about this before but our redistricting boundary policy like both the overall policy itself but also the ability to move smaller numbers of neighborhoods that are maybe actually closer to a school they might actually

[01:15:53] be totally fine going to another another school if we move the whole neighborhood is that something that will also come into play for all of this if we give ourselves a couple more years to suss out what are the problems and what are our solutions if we also have new tools with our boundary policy potentially? Yeah, so this year we are planning to work with some leading consulting firms to perform an audit on our existing redistricting policy and identify ways in which we can incorporate student learning, student equity, in addition to the efficiency components that we

[01:16:28] have already built into the policy. And that's this year, or that's happening, or it will be happening? We are just about to cross the start line of getting this ball in motion. Okay, because I feel like that's also a piece of this puzzle because we have made boundaries over many years and they're a little bit ad hoc and you know and there's some politics to play that you know have made consequences unforeseen at the time and so and then you have birth rates you know that certain neighborhoods are aging out as their kids go to college but people are staying in houses

[01:17:05] nobody's having kids so then schools are shrinking I mean I have several schools and they're not it's This is all in the East. Yay. But in my district, for instance, I have a couple of neighborhoods where their birth rates are very low, and then they're surrounded by areas that are not so, but then those schools are so small, like they're shrinking.

[01:17:23] They're going to be at like 55% capacity or something like that. And that's also a problem. That's a problem from budget. It's a problem of like having facilities that we're not properly using, you know, and so, but then you might be next, that boundary might be next to a school like on that slide.

[01:17:40] A dark green next to a dark red, you know, where one's overcrowded and right next door is a school that's like, please send us some students. Yeah, it is complicated, and I think it's kind of reminiscent of the House of Representatives, too. We have, as the U.S., the best historical record of population going back several hundreds of years because we're basing part of our representation off a population.

[01:18:04] We redraw those lines every 10 years. You think about Prince William County, part of the county devolved from itself. We had schools there. Things change over time in addition to just changes in enrollment. So revisiting boundaries, revisiting the way that we do boundaries, yeah, that's definitely within our purview this year.

[01:18:25] Okay, move on. One minute for the next set of the global. Welcome, Senator. You can do it in less than a minute, I think. I can do that. Moving on to a segment of our population is the growth that we have observed and anticipate in the future for English learners, or ELLs.

[01:18:42] Nationally speaking, about 1 in 10 or 10% of the U.S. K-12 population utilizes L services. Here in PwC, it's about 1 in 5 or double, 20%. Prepared for you on the bar chart on the right is the time since 2016 through 2023 that shows that the percentage of our enrollment who are leveraging L services has increased.

[01:19:10] More than $59 million of funding has been associated with this particular program in fiscal year '24, and this is up about $17.4 million since 2019-20 school year. We've highlighted the funding per year on the graph table at the bottom, and the next to those highlights are the enrollment figures in the ELLS program.

[01:19:33] You can see from fiscal year '21 on that there has been a steady increase in our ELLS enrollment. Whenever families select in the online registration process that the language spoken at home is one other than English, their registration packet is routed to the Global Welcome Center.

[01:19:53] We have two of those, and we're focusing today's conversation on the Manassas campus. It's located in a separate structure on the Unity Braxton campus. It serves 43 schools in Western PWC. The bar chart shows that over the last couple of years, we have been processing over 2,000 enrollment registrations there.

[01:20:15] And we are on track again this year to surpass that, so a third consecutive year of growth. And speaking with Dr. Colon and some of her staff who lead the Global Welcome Center at the Manassas campus, we have identified and heard of some issues and challenges that they face that are resulting from the structure itself, largely in part the small size of it. It limits the number of concurrent appointments that can be held with families and students that assist with the enrollment process as well as does language proficiency testing at this site. As I have mentioned once or twice

[01:20:54] there are two structures that are composing this particular welcome center and in order to access them you go out into the elements to go into the other structure. There's also only one set of bathrooms serving the public and the staff and they're located in one of the structures. Parking is also limited at this particular campus and the structure itself because of its smaller size is limiting future opportunities for this program to expand to partner with extramural agencies and to provide continued support to these scholars even

[01:21:29] after they complete their registration. In the proposed CIP we are preparing and proposing to you a solution that consists of replacing this global welcome center with a new standalone structure estimated to be about 20,000 square feet and located at Sinclair Elementary School site we are proposing a scheduled opening in August of 26 and the estimated cost is just over 15 million dollars another segment of the population that we want to focus on is our early childhood special education I mentioned this group earlier in the

[01:22:07] presentation because it's driving a large part of our enrollment growth projection this year ahead. On this particular bar chart, you'll see a blue bar over a series of time that represents the number of early childhood special education students enrolled on the first day of school. Immediately next to those are orange bars that represent the ECSC enrollment at the last day of the school year. What you'll see by looking at this is that during the school years, the enrollment increases. And if you look at all of the bar charts in total,

[01:22:40] you'll see an overall increasing trend along with projected growth over the next years in response to this we're providing a recommendation to construct classroom additions at two facilities on the eastern part of the county where the demand is already present for ecsc education and where it's anticipated to increase in the future these are washington reed preschool center and Occoquan Elementary School we are proposing a scheduled opening of 2027 for these two structures

[01:23:15] total classrooms to be built would be 30 classrooms with an estimated cost of about 29.8 million dollars as we've mentioned with the high school we are wanting to move forward slowly and diligently and observe trends we are putting in here a phase two if needed that in 2028 we would construct an additional 15 classrooms at a renovated and ludwig site the cost for that separate addition if needed would be 18 and a half million dollars I'm gonna

[01:23:50] speak to new facility changes from the last proposed CIP our 14th high school discussed delaying the by two years and reducing the capacity that results in a savings of nearly 86 million dollars which we have applied toward other projects discussed this evening Potomac Shores Elementary School will be an increase in capacity Occoquan Elementary School replacement and Woodbridge Area Elementary School will see additional funds allocated due to unforeseen conditions on both of these sites the Noakesville school addition is shown with its approximate cost Pennington traditional addition and the

[01:24:28] global welcome center the new pre-k facilities that Dr. Cartlidge referenced are also noted here as well as temporary classrooms that we need to purchase trailers to accommodate at the cost of about seven and a half million so the net impact of these changes totals just over 29 million dollars renovation changes in the CIP this was referring back to the facility condition index you've heard of this evening if the ranking came in red or maroon those are worse off physical condition of the facility orange and yellow are in better

[01:25:04] condition as a result benton middle school will be deferred based on its fci score cedar point elementary school is receiving additional funding allocation the renovation is currently underway featherstone elementary school will also be deferred in this recommendation per its score swans creek it will receive additional funding needed its renovation is also underway you will see a transportation center renovation at potomac center which is one of our oldest facilities Brentsville High School, we've applied additional funding to do a larger scale because we do believe capacity

[01:25:42] will be needed particularly in the undersized cafeteria at the existing location and other improvements at this site. However, it will be delayed based on improvements that have already been conducted, thus reducing its FCI score. Graham Park Middle School remains on schedule.

[01:25:59] Transportation Central Center and Transportation McEwen Center will both be deferred as we focus on student learning and centers supporting that student education. Fred Lynn Middle School has to date of the FCIs we've received the worst score.

[01:26:16] So we have intended to do a full blown renovation there. So we have increased the funding allocation on that one and advanced that renovation program. It will also be sitting next to the brand new Woodbridge Elementary School. So we anticipate that being a nice campus.

[01:26:31] - I have a question. It's about Woodbridge Middle. - So I know that the renovation is in 2028, 2029, but that school still has no loading dock, which absolutely impacts the way that the school operates because everything has to be stuffed into a hallway.

[01:26:48] And we also get fined from the county every year because there's no loading dock. So if we don't, I don't need an update right now, but I would like to discuss that and hear more about the FCI and where we stand on that.

[01:27:03] and then also more details about what you plan to do with the president. I think it may be helpful, and we may have said that you were gonna do this, I just don't remember if we could get our schools by district or what it looks like in a picture in its totality of the FCI scores and the schools, and maybe a little just more information on, I know I would like how we come up with that score.

[01:27:27] - Sure, we'd be happy to present that. - Not right now, but those are just things later we can address, thank you. - Thank you. Additionally, Ann Ludwig is shown as a renovation of that site should future pre-K needs be needed in that location. Vaughan Elementary School is being advanced based on its score, so it will be included in this CIP for renovation.

[01:27:47] And Woodbridge Middle School is on track, and we will look into storage needs and a loading dock at this time. Unity Braxton, that's a fairly good score. What are the things that are being needed to be done?

[01:28:04] What was in the CIP to do for Unity Braxton? So originally Uni Braxton was slated to have an overall renovation. We do the 7-year, 14-year, 20-25-year renewal. It was the full renovation. This score came in as well as assessments just that the school is in very good condition. So we're able to readjust its location in the queue.

[01:28:24] So we don't know when it would be. We just know it's not in the 2025 CIP. I'll jump in here. Not at this time. and and miss wall when we develop next year's CIP we will have the full scope of all the facilities condition indexes done at that time so we'll have a much more comprehensive this year we were able to accomplish 20 with the time that we had next year we'll have all the schools and we'll be able to have a more comprehensive kind of ranking at that time but we prioritized through the FCI some of our schools that we perceived to be in the worst condition and actually we were a little bit surprised with how some of them came out with a pretty good

[01:29:02] score so 20 now and you're in you do the rest by next year and then will that be something that you do every on a cycle like every three years we haven't determined that but I think that makes good sense to develop a kind of a cycle of how we go about doing that yes ma'am in regards to which schools will prioritize didn't we also look at what was coming up in the CIP to make sure that you know what we were putting forward were the facilities that whose conditions were a top priority that's exactly right and that's why you saw in the previous slide what the proposed or what the current CIP was for this you

[01:29:41] know what we were proposing off to the left and then the adjustments that we were making because the FCI did inform and we were we removed schools and then reprioritized and pushed schools up into the queue so yes ma'am and I have one question that doesn't have to be answered now if we could just get an update later is where we stand for equity of course purposes for schools that do not yet have like music spaces and science lab and activity spaces as well because I know that some schools have them some schools do not have them that's been something we've been asking about for years but I'm not sure how

[01:30:17] that fits into the new FCI score so if we could get an update on that later that'd be great as well thank you and you'll recall some specifically with the science labs that was all about space that there wasn't any space to actually create a lab and so as schools do get renovated that's one of the things that we're focused on and then also our associate superintendent for teaching and learning is bringing some really innovative practices to the school division where we'll have mobile labs that'll be able for schools to be able to utilize in the interim so there's some more information coming forward about that thank you I'm really excited about that and I know that's something

[01:30:56] you guys have been working really hard on I just for my own the way my brain works wasn't sure how that fits in to that schedule or how we're really looking at it since we're doing things in it in a new modernized way so that's sort of the lens that I was looking at it from as well thank you but thank you dr. McDade that's awesome thank you this slide shows new classroom space coming online in this next cycle FY 25 through 29 so we're starting a queue here again showing new space from 25 with Woodbridge Elementary School through August 29 of the five-year program with 14th high school coming online facility renovation overview it also a cue showing in order which schools will be

[01:31:35] renovated through these next five years and our CIP summary here shows the type of project whether it's new construction renovation minor maintenance minor project or maintenance as well as the funding type and you'll see the video e grant when I spoke to earlier went toward the HVAC projects with a five year total of just over nine hundred seventy million dollars good evening Dr. Lateef, school board members and Dr. McDade. Just briefly want to recognize a couple of my team

[01:32:13] members that are sitting back here. Kathleen Edison, she just stepped out from her budget office, and Edward Ross, who's our capital projects accountant. So with all these changes and deferrals, debt being our primary source of funding for this, the sizing of debt changes. So if you look at the chart from FY 2024 to FY 2025, you could see that in the two

[01:32:47] years of FY 25 and 26, the debt sizing reduces and then as the other large projects come on, we increase it in 27-28. This is a better scenario from a funding perspective because it's a more flatter debt service and it allows us to manage. If we were to issue debt of $239 million and $276 million in 2025 and 2026, the initial

[01:33:17] effect of it would be much larger than issuing $169 and $158. So we plan to issue our debt in terms of where we are with interest rates. Prior to COVID, we were averaging about 2%. Right now, we're at four four percent but the markets they they some talk as the feds start bringing interest rates down that that by next fall we might see a better rate next slide please and then in terms

[01:33:51] of the budget timeline obviously we are here today with the capital improvement program work session then on February 7th the superintendent will present the 2025 proposed budget and CIP to the school board we will have two by twos prior to that there will be a public meeting on the FY25 proposed budget in CIP on February 12 then followed by February 21st an official public hearing with a school board work session for

[01:34:24] final markup on March 13th 2024 and then finally on March 20th 2024 we will approve a budget and CIP and submit it to the County Board of Supervisors the information that is in your binder in front of you is also available at this link on the bottom of this slide and that concludes our presentation of the proposed CIP Dr. McDade I think we did you have anything further to add what we

[01:35:01] proposed today was our best thinking using some of the new tools that we have within our repertoire to make decisions based on conditions of facilities and in In light of that, we did have a couple of inquiries from board members about a few other facilities that did not show up in the plan.

[01:35:24] And so I do want to propose a few additions and one consideration. Number one, we already have plans for renovation for Brentsville High School. We do have, as a part of Brentsville High School, the turf management CTE program, which is an award-winning program.

[01:35:42] we have for the last couple of years been trying to secure philanthropic dollars for the turf management uh for turf management facility which is desperately needed we i would like to propose that that's an addition to the cip because brinsville is already scheduled to get a full renovation so i think that it is apropos to bring that forward now since we were unsuccessful with philanthropic dollars and we do have the ability to do that as opposed to doing the renovation at Brentsville and still trying to fund it and then later

[01:36:18] on not not having it so that's an addition that I think that we should add especially considering all of the work that we're doing to continue to invest in CTE and to have an exemplary program like that with a renovation on the horizon I do think that it makes sense for us to add it the other thing that came up was the track and field at Colgan and so in assessing that what we did recognize because we we are looking at conditions of facilities and putting that first is that there was another high school's track that is in dire

[01:36:53] condition for maintenance so as a part not as a part of renovation but a proposed maintenance for two tracks both Colgan and Patriot High School actually Patriot High School track is older than Colgan and it does need repair so I do want Vern to speak to that and then one condition I'm not proposing that this goes into the CIP because I'm very proud of the fact that everything is it that's in here we've done a full evaluation on and we vetted to make sure that there aren't other projects that should go ahead of these projects one

[01:37:30] that came up was the baseball field at Woodbridge High School so we will do an assessment of that I'm not proposing that it goes in this year's CIP it may have to come up depending on what that assessment shows but we did assess Colgan and Patriot so I do want Vern to speak to that and I do would like for Shaquille and Vern to speak to the proposal to have the turf management facility built ahead of the renovation at Brentsville. Sure absolutely, although you know Dr. McDade did share that Patriot Track is a few years older than

[01:38:08] Colgan, the situation at Colgan is we have some granularization of the track occurring which means particles of the surface are starting to delaminate and the major concern the foundation of the track is in really good shape the concrete underneath the pad underneath is in really good shape we're not experiencing cracking but what's starting to occur is that rubber surface is starting to delaminate from the concrete pad underneath so we see this as being a pretty substantial issue that we need to address now and it's at a tune of about three hundred fifty thousand dollars to replace that and we

[01:38:44] do have funding within our facilities budget to address that so we'd like to address it sooner than the spring i don't think it's it's not i don't think anybody's going to get hurt on the track that's not the current condition that it's in but we do know we need to replace it it requires uh optimal temperatures to put down the rubber surface and this spring you know we're in the throes of winter and it requires several sustained days of 50 degrees to put that down i don't see a window happening before the start of outdoor track which is generally the end of February 1st of March so it's likely we'll get to this over the summer and

[01:39:20] then you'll see us bringing forward to you the the Patriot track which which is still in pretty good shape for as old as it is the concrete pad is intact we do want to replace that and the turf fields up for replacement as well so we would do that concurrently and you'll see you would see that next year's CIP and this is a bit of a shift because in the past these were looked at as a renovation but technically it's not a renovation it's maintenance and it should be a part of our regular maintenance plan and I almost forgot you had asked me to speak to dr. McDade Brentsville we we do have some kind of a rough estimate for the

[01:39:56] board we did have a concept design that was put forward we're basing this estimate off the concept design obviously as we'd get into it and then commission an architect to do a schematic design for us we'll have a much better idea but we're estimating between four and a half to five million dollars and that project if it started this year this upcoming year it would take us about two to two and a half years to finish and Shaquille I let you speak to the financial piece so in terms of funding that we primarily increase our debt sale to to help help with that if there are any upfront planning core costs etc we could use some of our cash transfers but primarily it's going to be

[01:40:36] from from debt sales and we do have the capacity and then can you speak to woodbridge i'm sorry go ahead dr go ahead and finish you were going to talk about the baseball i think the baseball field and and uh i think uh water at uh you know having water at the concession stand as well we did send a team out uh to meet with the principal uh the dsa they're currently our team's currently investigating the conditions there uh and we'll have a better idea i don't have a report for the board at the moment but we will have an update shortly they want to address it because it was brought forward from constituents from woodbridge and again like the

[01:41:12] the track, things like water and the concession, that's all maintenance, right? So that's maintenance that we should be doing upkeep on and not necessarily something that we should be bringing forward as a renovation. So we will do the assessment on that and then make sure we come back with what the resolution is for it.

[01:41:30] And Dr. Lutzke, if you wanted to -- I was going to just give -- first of all, thank you. I think the idea of both the condition and need-based efforts that you guys have sort implemented division-wide is really helpful and then the idea that things are maintenance sometimes rather than construction or new construction is really good and really helps with that and then the thoughtful aspects to the funding sources really appreciate before our two board members weigh in because it is really important to me that you know and the public knows that there is a lot of thought and intentionality that goes into this so

[01:42:08] So even when we looked at Colgan and Patriot, I did ask Vern about all of the other tracks in the county. And so if you would just give a quick update on where we are with that. Yeah, absolutely. I pulled some data, and actually almost all of our tracks, except Freedom is 2018, so that's still fairly.

[01:42:27] It's within that 10-year to 12-year cycle. Most outside of that, the oldest track is 2019. So they're all within that four-year window, so we're in really good position. But what we're going to be doing as a team, because this hasn't been par for the course in the division, is putting these projects as well on a replacement cycle.

[01:42:49] We know the life cycle, so we'll be building that in, and there'll be some intentionality about that, of how we go about replacing those moving forward. I wanted to ask about the Global Welcome Center at Sinclair. I know Sinclair has a parking lot issue, and I don't think that's a CIP thing, right?

[01:43:09] Is that in, or maybe it was the slide that said just minor things that we were going to do, but the siting of the Global Welcome Center, the parking lot at Sinclair, and access in and out of that school, which has a very, very small parking lot currently. I can address that. And, you know, we did, we were partnering with a church adjacent to the school where we were sharing some parking.

[01:43:32] We've since, that relationship has since ended, and we had to come up with a kind of a stopgap measure. So we've installed some temporary parking, put some gravel behind the school to increase parking for the site. But we will be this summer expanding the parking around the side of the school, addressing all of our parking needs directly on site.

[01:43:54] And the beauty of designing a welcome center on those grounds is they would then share and utilize and we would expand the parking even further to address that site. And we can do that all within the footprint and not affect the play space at the school. That is great news. Thank you. I know it's been an issue for the neighborhood and the school, and I think that's a great location, by the way, for a new global welcome center.

[01:44:19] Yeah, it's really where we're seeing a lot of our enrollment coming from in that general area of the community, and the nice thing about that location is it is on the bus line, so families can get access and transportation to the center. yeah I think it's a great I think it's a great location thank you I just want to say thank you the the track improvements are huge I know a lot of people don't you know see that but it makes a huge difference that you know these kids at Brentsville with a new track it's made a huge difference and it you know it did take a while but they but they got on it and and they're loving it so I will

[01:44:59] never be shy about my love for the Brentsville turf program it is a wonderful program and it's open to all kids in the county which is great and the opportunities that that program provides the reach that they have nationally these kids are about to go to Daytona Beach Florida and be recognized alongside adults who envy and want these kids autographs and and things like that this program has the ability to really implement the the thriving future

[01:45:34] and giving them that in a realm that's not necessarily writing on paper and doing those things. These are kids that find joy and find fulfillment in this program. And I can't say enough good things about now Dr. Miller. He, I mean, just runs this great program. And so building and putting resources into that program and making it even larger, I think will help also reach kids and and they'll see hey this might be something i'm interested in and the coolest part to me about the program is there are kids that join it as an elective and do that and then they fall in love

[01:46:13] with this program and it ends up becoming a career and how they feed their families later in life and it is just the coolest thing um so i encourage anybody that hasn't been out to see that to see it and i can't wait to see what happens thank you mr jesse yeah i just want to i don't know the right sequence of this but i did have a few questions i still like to ask uh we also like to point out something that mr wilkes pointed out that parents of walkers are becoming more

[01:46:51] driving their cars to the school than it's uh i know rockledge pointed out the other night that's a problem up there and i have another school somebody's complaining about the uh people just blocking traffic all the way down the thing and i'm looking at occoquan elementary and i'm just trying to visualize how you guys are going to handle the traffic on what is that the occoquan road and uh uh old bridge uh because it is really particularly when the parents decide that they

[01:47:30] They don't want their kids, and they sit there. They don't just go and drive. They sit there for half an hour until a school opens, and it's a problem. But one other question I have, Matt, for you is I think the charts at Woodbridge High School is about 2,700 capacity, and then I think in the next slide it's about minus 110.

[01:48:01] Maybe this is an issue that Mrs. Williams talked about as far as the definition of the right capacity because the impression I get is that Woodbridge is overflowing with students and there's no room to add anything else.

[01:48:20] So, you know, I can see that we need to wait, you know, the year that we already said we were going to wait and then another two years and I see the wisdom of doing that. But the concern I have is that if what I'm hearing and feeling is correct, we need to get some relief with not five years down the road, but we need some relief in the near future or in some way.

[01:48:51] So the other thing is sort of like the elephant in the room. And Matt, you know, we work a lot on boundaries and I love working on boundaries and stuff. However, I never forget 12 years ago, attending a board meeting for the first time and there was a boundary issue.

[01:49:17] And this one lady got up and they were gonna, the boundary was moving to two elementary schools. And she wasn't complaining about the school that the kids were going to because of the normal thing.

[01:49:34] What she was complaining about is that I'm going from a school that is high academically performing and you now forcing me to move somewhere to a lower school. And this organizational coherence where we need to get all our schools to be as good as possible so that it doesn't matter whether you go to one school or the other because they're all the same.

[01:50:01] Now the buildings might, you know, you can't, would I love to have my kids over at Colvin? Yeah, would I love to have my kids at the new 14th high school? Yeah, because of the new building. But hopefully the issue is not the academic performance of the school.

[01:50:19] And, you know, in the Woodbridge area, there are schools that are considered bad. Our kids went to a school that everybody said we went, but we thought it was really a good school after we got there. So thank you for putting up with me.

[01:50:36] I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Jesse. And just one response to that. Woodbridge High is currently over capacity. So if it does feel like it's teeming with students, we agree, our numbers align. It's also one of those situations where the enrollment projections are suggesting that the cohorts moving into Woodbridge High are smaller.

[01:50:56] So that particular school in our example, self-corrects before the end of our projection window of seven years. - Ms. Williams and then Ms. Zargarpur. - I have another question to add to the, Can you update later, Pyle?

[01:51:14] When we look at the pre-K expansions, can we also get an update on the playground equipment and what is currently at that facility, and if we plan on updating that equipment to include for special needs students, if it's currently there or not, just sort of the general status, 'cause we get a lot of information on fields.

[01:51:33] At the high school level, we don't really get any information at all of what's going on in our elementary playgrounds or field access areas. Thank you. - Thank you, Dr. Lateef.

[01:51:49] Thank you for considering the Colgan Track. That was gonna be one of my questions tonight. I know not everything belongs in the SIPP. And just for kind of my clarification, but also for anybody who happens to be listening to this, in the future, if there are things at schools, 'cause I don't play football, so I'm not gonna know if there's something wrong with the football field, and where can people put those concerns?

[01:52:18] Should they be talking to their principal, ADs, yeah? - Yeah, I would say, well, one, now with the tools that we have and are using, we will know, right? So it will be a full assessment of the facility that then lets our team know where the problem areas are.

[01:52:38] So it really shouldn't be that someone has to come forward and report it, we should have a great assessment our facilities and know what general maintenance needs to be addressed year over year so I think what we have put in place to date and as we continue to enhance that you'll see more and more that you know we'll be really readily on top of a lot of any improvements or maintenance that needs to be half that needs to happen in addition to what Vern talked about in terms of putting things on a schedule so that we know there's a regular schedule of making sure that there's updates being made and if there is a situation where something is missed then of course building administration can flag it for

[01:53:17] their level associate and level associates can bring forward to the COO any concerns that local schools might have okay I'm gonna I have to leave a bit in a bit but I'm gonna just wrap up with a couple statements and certainly a board member still need that chat but just remember this is the first presentation of the CIP so you all have time to you know email questions both to superintendent or the staff regarding whatever concerns you may have and thoughts you might have so please please take advantage of that time and opportunity because you should one I want to commend the staff I mean I just

[01:53:53] think again as I point out earlier the the change in the way we're doing things from with the new superintendent regarding conditions needs based strategic alignment with the strategic plan all are really good improvements that are really going to make our CIP even better than it has been.

[01:54:14] I like going to a five-year CIP. I think it's great. It's more nimble. And I think it also gives us more insight into costs and what our projected bonds are going to be in our borrowing. And that's really critical, especially with the fact that our budgets are not going to be as great as they were the last five years.

[01:54:33] So they're going to be different, and it's going to be different. And we might get to a point where the budget dictates what we can do, not our sort of collective desire anymore, right? So that's what I worry about as well. Thank you for the HVAC at Ripon. That was something that I know in the last couple of years we really, the 16 HVACs, outstanding.

[01:54:51] The whole team should be congratulated. I know we used the pandemic dollars to do it, but great work. Five years more nimble. Congratulations on getting innovation open, elementary. We are thrilled, both Ms. Williams, I, Mr. Wilk, the Woodbridge Elementary School on route one and the changes at Fred Lynn fantastic that's outstanding solar power purchasing great I love to see that in the plan that is fantastic I mean that is something that really it's a great story that continues to be a story but the battlefield Belleville Middle School I'm very excited about that and then you know I already talked about you know as

[01:55:27] our model plays out about needs and fits for how we do our impact statements I think that's important and then you know the domino effect right we saw that with the Gainesville high school boundaries right so that those boundary changes impacted even Osborne Park High School so and and that's what it's supposed to do I mean the goal of these if we're telling the county and our impact statement is that the whole county is overcrowded right well then when we build a new facility there's gonna be the goal is to reduce overcrowding everywhere as much as we possibly can so the domino effect is critical and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that night and last on since we've talked about boundaries a lot tonight I really do have to commend mr. Wilk and

[01:56:06] mr. Williams on the boundaries that we did for the elementary school in Potomac Shores or was the middle school was it the middle school mr. Wilk was it was it was a middle school in the elementary school there it was outstanding yeah right so so so every no the the and I don't I don't I say this because I think it's important to remember that we have gotten it right in many places and I think it is important so as a process continues to improve and we look to do this again we do this with an eye on you know needs and equity and I and all these things and I appreciate dr. McDade all the work you've done and just a lot

[01:56:43] of work that's gone into the CIP I really appreciate it I think the community appreciates it it's a really strong strong document and and plan that is responsible both fiscally and practically so I really appreciate that that so with that I will if anyone else does anyone else have any comments and remember we can talk some more miss miss wall and then I'm gonna sneak out here a bit miss our report will complete the meeting thank you I want to just build on some of the things dr. Lateef said um thank you mr. Yusuf and mr. Bach and

[01:57:19] your team everybody for your hard work on this is a great CIP I like the alignment with strategic priorities I can see that that's a definite effort that was made in the CIP I like the facilities index I think that's a great idea I know it takes a lot of work but I think that's gonna help us going forward as we address the needs of the division I mean we're a big division we have a lot of schools we have new schools old schools and everything in between and so it's it's really important I do really like the new approach to enrollment projections I think that's great that's gonna help us a lot I think to be able to get into the neighborhoods and that the birth data

[01:57:55] you know the actual number of students in the attendance areas and then some of that transfer data that we can bring into play I think that's gonna really help us a lot as we try to anticipate the needs of a division that is no longer rapidly growing so I mean I my kids came in we moved in principal and candy when my daughter entered kindergarten that was 2005 so I was here during those years and experienced that impact so this is a different this is gonna be different it's gonna be different for us and I really do appreciate the thoughtfulness and anticipating what that's going to look like and how the decisions will need to be different because of it as we kind of you know

[01:58:35] shuffle kids around in open schools and strategic places and evaluate how big they need to be or how small and I even love the idea of building and you know building on and then saying but we know where we'll build in the future if we need more classrooms kind of this accordion effect I like this so I really appreciate it I think it's thoughtful I think the analysis is going to be good you know analysis of the needs and I really do appreciate that I to fiscal responsibility recognizing that you know things cost a lot and schools definitely cost a lot and the school nowadays costs a lot more than it did 20 years ago and so that's really important for us to balance you know balance these stewards of taxpayers money because you know everybody's

[01:59:14] feeling every everybody's feeling it obviously we want good facilities and good schools and good programming and all the rest so I just really appreciate everybody's effort to be mindful of all of those priorities as we build this CIP Thank you very much. Anybody else?

[01:59:31] Okay. With that, I think the meeting is adjourned.

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