Coraggio Consulting
Prince William County School Board CIP Work Session, Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Place: Prince William County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 28m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGSzUCWR-0
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 2026-10-28. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] - Good evening, I'm gonna call to order the work session for the capital improvement plan work session for Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. At this time, I will take a vote for the motion for the agenda.

[00:00:17] Vice Chair, Jesse. - Chair, I move that the Prince William County School Board approve the median agenda as recommended. - Do I have a second? - Second. - Ms. Trudenik second the motion. Any discussion, please vote by raising your hand.

[00:00:35] - That looks like one, two, three, seven, yes. One absent, motion passes. Moving on to our proposed CIP, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Dr. McDade. Dr. McDade. - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Greetings to the chair, vice chair and members of the board, as well as community that may be watching via live stream.

[00:00:56] Today's work session is focused solely on the capital improvement plan and the conditions that must guide our decisions moving forward. For more than three decades, Prince William County has experienced growth, growth such as new neighborhoods new schools and new facilities much of the planning in our County has reflected that reality but today's presentation asks us to confront a different paradigm you will hear from our team about projected enrollment trends that point to significant declines over the next decade these projections have implications for how we use our facilities in the near term and for how we plan responsibly for the long-term

[00:01:36] success of Prince William County schools particularly this planning must be accomplished considering increasing costs and declining utilization due to enrollment across the school division the information that you'll see today is intended to lay the groundwork much of it is for future consideration not necessarily immediate action however there is one area where your guidance will be essential as part of the work the board will be presented with two capital scenarios one that continues forward with a previously planned high school the 14th high school and one that pivots in favor of reinvesting

[00:02:15] resources into other high priority needs across the school system while no vote is anticipated today we are seeking your direction as we prepare the proposed budget and align our capital priorities accordingly I realize that this is extremely complex work it reflects demographic shifts fiscal responsibility and our commitment to making strategic student-centered decisions the decisions require us to rethink long-standing assumptions in favor of long-standing practices this is definitely a different school system

[00:02:51] that it was when enrollment was continuing to grow year over year and so So now we have to make different types of decisions that are very complex. So with that context, I'm going to turn the presentation over to our team, beginning with our chief operating officer, Mr. Vernon Bach.

[00:03:09] Our chief information officer is also a part of the team, Mr. Matt Guilfoyle, and our chief financial officer, Mr. Shaquille Youssef. And so they'll have members of their team that will present data and walk you through several different scenarios as well as implications for decisions that must be made on the capital improvement plan so I'll turn it over to you mr. Bach all right thank you dr. McDade good evening dr. Lateef board members and dr. McDade we're here to present to you obviously our proposed capital improvement plan for 2027 2031 the development of this plan has been truly a collaborative effort

[00:03:47] between the chief information officer the chief operating officer and the Chief Financial Officer and our teams. We generally begin the development of the CIP in the fall and it truly has been a collaborative effort between these three departments and I feel like it's a shining example of organizational coherence and convergence. We have several members of our team here who will be joining us for the presentation but also a lot of members of the team that have put in a lot of work behind the scenes so I want to thank members of those teams as well or publicly.

[00:04:20] So just to outline to you the presentation tonight, we'll jump into discussing with you student and sharing with you student enrollment trends. We have Scott Halsey, our facility planning coordinator here with us tonight who will kick off the presentation with that information, as well as long-term planning and considerations.

[00:04:40] We'll talk about the 14th high school considerations. I'll update the board on estimates that we've received, new and current estimates, and then we'll get in, Dave Beavers will take over with discussing with you some of the approved and proposed capital improvement projects.

[00:04:58] We have Justin Moss with us here, our director of facilities, who's going to jump in and share with you some of the energy efficiency and sustainability measures in the CIP, and then Mr. Youssef will round it out at the end on impacts on the budget.

[00:05:15] just quickly dr. McDade did a really nice job of framing this as enrollments continue to decline they're yielding significant capacity gaps at our schools and these changes are going to lead to multiple future decisions about facility usage we'll talk again I'll share with you the estimated and updated cost they have risen dramatically for the 14th high school due to several factors which we'll cover with you tonight and then just to reiterate to what dr. McDade said the big decision point moving forward on this CIP is really scenario a which includes the 14th high school or scenario B which

[00:05:50] includes discontinuing the 14th high school and with that said I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Scott Halsey good evening everybody so we're gonna start with the student enrollment and long-term planning considerations first we're gonna get a lay of the land of what we're currently seeing with enrollment we're still seeing out migration from the Northern Virginia area you see it along in like the hampton roads area so the two biggest metros we're seeing out migration as long with declining birth rates over the last 10 years we've seen birth rates decline

[00:06:22] by 750 births in 23 24 we saw 5 717 births in princeman county so without migration and the declining births that is factors with population and how we're going to get students within our school system with our population pyramid on the right hand side we see a large cohort at the very top in high school there's currently 7200 students in 12th grade and our kindergarten cohort this past year was roughly 5600 students which is roughly 1600 students different from our 12th grade cohort so

[00:06:58] as these smaller cohorts matriculate through and knock out these larger cohorts we're going to see declining enrollment this past year we saw our first grade cohort fall under 6,000 students which is the first time since 2010 so we've gone 15 years of seeing a cohort of first grade over 6,000 students so as these cohorts do continue to matriculate through we're going to see smaller and smaller cohorts moving up to middle school and high school moving next to our new housing and constructions looking at how many homes new houses were built last year we roughly had 1,500 new homes

[00:07:37] built projecting the next three years we're seeing roughly around 1200 homes approximately in the low thousands area then you see a big uptick in 2029 through 2031 this is because that's when we start building into our projections the current rezoning submitted applications and these applications are currently undergoing rezoning to move from let's say either a 1 to r4 of how many homes they can build on these parcels of land something we did we moved from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach last year and our projecting a projection model for new residential housing

[00:08:16] and that has allowed us to let current developments produce their own yield so how many homes they're building via single-family detached single-family attached or multi-family attached homes and that is something we do see and it's been helping for those developments and for developments that do not have any current yield rates we use the county average of all the homes that are being built at those levels to determine how many homes will be built the difficult thing is the multi family attached units because sometimes they are rather larger so we're only seeing an average of

[00:08:51] possibly 30 to 40 multi-family homes as an average across the county but a lot of those units are over 300 units when they are being constructed so that's something we're looking to possibly enhance within our projection window for new housing looking at our historical and projected enrollment this is pk through 12. over the next five years we're looking to decline by roughly 3 000 students 2 981 to be exact for the next five years and now looking at it within the elementary middle and

[00:09:25] high schools over this past year K through 12 we had 86,943 students and in SY30 we're projecting almost a 3,000 student decline you see at the elementary school level we have a consistent decline through the first four years and then a slight uptick in year five currently we only have birth data through the first four years from the Virginia Department of Health and then in the fifth year we use our county demographer over with Prince William county government and we get the number of women age bearing 18 to 44 to help

[00:10:02] project how many births we could see in year five his numbers have been slightly higher than what we've been seeing from the Virginia Department of Health which is why we see a slight rise in enrollment in that fifth year high school looks like it's declining through the seven years for high school we do project seven years because those students are within our schools are and these are the second graders through 11th graders where we project then at the middle school level you see the middle school is declining all the way down to 19,000 students approximately and that is roughly 16,000 less or

[00:10:40] 1,600 less than we currently have today here is our short-term and long-range projections here we use a linear extrapolation model to project outside the five-year window for a long-range projection to see where we are going with Prince William County Public Schools at the elementary school level we are seeing a dip of almost an additional 3,000 students over the course of the five years from 2031 to 2035 and at the middle school level we're seeing it be a more consistent actually a slight increase based off the historical numbers with the linear extrapolation at the high school level we are continuing

[00:11:20] to see a decline in enrollment through that next three years of the projection I can ask a quick question on your slide 8 you said and I don't know if this I'm reading this wrong but 2025 which is this year says 89 731 but then you have later on that we have we have 86 943 for this year so which is it so 2025 on page 8 says 89 731 and then

[00:11:58] on slide 10 SY 25 enrolled students which I guess is this year it says 86 943 that's difference of twenty five hundred three thousand so that's our pre-k students so one is K through 12 and the historical enrollment is pre-k through 12 oh I see so so Pete okay so we have oh okay so this okay so that's important so the page 10 is only kindergarten through 12 and page 8 is pre-k correct but so okay so all other charts though are K through 12 correct yes all other charts are K

[00:12:37] through 12. Okay thank you. Moving forward this past year we moved high school from planning capacity to program capacity. Planning capacity is how a building is in design and how it is being intended to use based off the design of the school. Program is how the building is currently being used by the principal based off the programs in the school the special education programs if there's preschool programs and that is program capacity. This past year we switched from planning to program capacity

[00:13:12] at the high school level and we saw a decrease in capacity at the high school level of 168. A lot of those schools are on the eastern side where we're seeing that decline and even so with that decline we are still seeing the necessary space on the east side of the county even with the switch to plan our program capacity at the high school level.

[00:13:35] This is something we just wanted to point out that we did move that switch from planning to program capacity. the underutilized educational spaces and they are anticipated to increase over the next 10 years in 2030 we almost have 12 000 vacant seats amongst elementary middle and high schools in 2035 that does increase to almost 15 000 seats this program capacity does indicate adding the additional capacities of the approved capital improvements from the fy 26 to 30 cip book so we

[00:14:12] So we would have the Dishnap-Marcellar, the Noakesville School, the Potomac Shores number two, it does include the 14th high school. Any of those approved CIP measures that were in the book last year are being reflected in that program capacity metric.

[00:14:31] Then looking at the underutilized educational spaces by East, West, and Central, looking at the program capacity, it's relative based off where the schools are located. It does merge the elementary middle and high schools depending on the east central and west and looking at the space in 2030 we would have roughly 4,600 seats available in the east about a thousand seats available in the central region and about 6,000 seats available in the west.

[00:14:58] The good news that the central does have the least amount of available seats but then it could have redistricting measures with the east and the west that could alleviate those pressures if necessary in those areas. Looking at the elementary school enrollment and considerations, we are looking at a decline in elementary school enrollment over the next five years.

[00:15:22] And it looks like it's going to continue to 2035 based off our birth rates, how migration is currently trending in our area. In 2030, we look to have roughly 5,200 seats available, which would be seven elementary schools, a space at the 750 design capacity school.

[00:15:43] Those vacant seats would give us a lot of future possibilities. We could look at consolidation. We could look at closures of schools and look how we could optimize our resources to make better use of the surplus space in these facilities. If this were to happen and these trends were to continue, we could repurpose those closed and consolidated facilities for student and admin needs, such as universal pre-K, any programmatic needs, any specialty programs.

[00:16:11] Workforce housing is another thing that we've seen across the nation of how they're using some of these facilities that are closing. Our goal would be to maintain the high-quality learning environments while using our space effectively across our division. Some of the trends we're seeing at the middle school level, we're seeing roughly two and a half middle schools of space in 2030, which roughly 3,600 vacant seats.

[00:16:36] With capacity pressures easing, we could create opportunities for realignment and redistricting if needed. redistricting to balance the enrollment and potential consolidation if this trend does continue in the out years lastly our high schools over the next seven years we're looking at enrollment to decline by approximately 3 000 students of that 1600 is at the high school level as these smaller cohorts do continue to matriculate through we're going to see the high school enrollment continue to decrease if births are not starting to increase or we see more in migration to Prince William

[00:17:14] county existing schools are projected to have a surplus of space even with the construction of the 14th high school in 2028 we do see 1200 seats across our division at the high school level and then we add the 14th high school in we jump to 2400 seats of available space and then looking to 2032's projection we have 3400 seats available across our division at the high school level some future possibilities is looking at our specialty programs and our transfer policies and then possibly looking at countywide redistricting and our goal is to sustain diverse opportunities for students while aligning facilities with

[00:17:52] our enrollment needs currently so now after the enrollment portion we're going to jump into our approved and proposed CIP measures for 27 to 31 let me just pause here does anyone have any questions on this first part of the presentation okay miss wall you I had I had sorry I had a question on page 11 in our booklet which is high school planning to program capacity the column

[00:18:28] this is planning capacity is that also for 2025 26 or is that for the 2024 25 school year that was the 2024 25 school year we have now transitioned to program capacity this school year okay thank you and those for clarification those numbers on page 11 are not how many kids are currently in the school that's just what the capacity is correct yeah it's the difference of the two capacities but neither indicate the number of kids in the school right now yes okay so my

[00:19:05] follow-up is just to make sure I understood you you said even though we moved to program capacity which reduced the number of seats available seats available even with that we're predicting all of these changes all of this impact of attendance correct we're still sorry yeah we're still indicating that there will be vacant seats with losing those 168 seats from that transition so it's having no effect on the space we have available at the high school level even though we did lose seats okay thank you miss we I'm just curious a few of the same page 11 a few of the schools for the planning

[00:19:45] capacity is actually lower than the program capacity which I just didn't expect do you could you provide some context maybe it depends I can't I know can't speak to each individual school but a lot of it depends on what programs are in the school are there more maybe special education programs where the loading factor in those rooms may be smaller um you do have different specialty programs at all the schools which would have different loading factors so you see generally 21 students for a general educational classroom at the high school level but you start getting into different specialties with osha standards you could be getting to like 15 students per class and that's where you see some of those decline

[00:20:24] and or increases in the program capacity at certain schools. Okay thank you for that I have one more question. Sorry not to get hung up on the whole program capacity. It's new. Make sure I understand this program capacity the number so I'm looking at Colgan 2457.

[00:20:41] This means that based on the programs at Colgan they can accommodate 2457 students. Correct is that okay. Correct yes. Yes right. Yeah and just Colgan for an example we actually did a deeper study into Colgan because it did have such a big increase. It's a big difference. Yeah we looked at when portable classrooms started to come to Colgan and it was roughly around that 25 to 2600 capacity number. They were operating in those low 2000s without portable classrooms so that's another indicating factor that they were able to utilize the space within the building

[00:21:15] and that we were able to base off all the data we received and the courses that are being taught we were confident in that number for Colgan. Okay thank you that's a good clarification. So starting with our renovations we still have Grand Park, Vaughn Elementary School, Fred Lynn Middle School, Woodbridge Middle School, Brinsfield District High School, Dale City Elementary School and we're looking to add Hampton Middle School into the queue for our renovation projects. Brief overview

[00:21:53] at the elementary school level Vaughn is currently in progress. The geothermal wells are being installed. The circle styled wings of the school are going to be demoed and rebuilt into rectangular classrooms as they're more conducive for a learning environment for our students. The scheduled opening is delayed to 2029 but that's because it is a phased addition and with the demolition of the wings it is a difficult renovation when students are within the building. Dale City Elementary is a renovation and addition. At this time it's beginning the design phase and we do not

[00:22:29] know the size of the addition yet. We're going to let the design and the location of that addition to determine how big that addition size is going to be. We're looking between 7 and 15 classrooms that will bring that school under 100 percent of capacity utilization. Next we have our middle schools Grand Park, Fredlin, and Woodbridge. All these are either underway or anticipated to start in fy 27 and are on schedule as the fy 2630 cip next is brinsville and that is currently in the design phase and looking to kick off in fy 2027 and looking to be completed in the 2029 physical

[00:23:09] year lastly our new school is hampton and that was next in queue using our facility condition index so this renovation will include a full renovation of the existing building an added main office office and office addition because their office is in two current different locations within their building so it's going to bring the office staff all to one central location at hampton next looking at our cip capacity projects we have no new projects being added to this year's cip we have the aqua on replacement school the woodbridge area school potomac shores

[00:23:45] number two the 14th high school pennington traditional school washington reed preschool center the noakesville school marcellar middle school and dale city elementary briefly discussing our cip capacity projects currently the aquan replacement school is anticipated open in 2026.

[00:24:04] immediate redistricting is not going to occur for the aquan replacement school it's going to house the current students that are in the building and it's going to allow for other programs to come back to occoquan there's other students that are the special education students early childhood special education that go to different schools because the school did not have the space to accommodate those students so these programs are now going to be in the new school and we'll look in the future if redistricting is needed in surrounding schools that's something we could look at at that time next we have the Woodbridge Area School and that is anticipated open in 2026

[00:24:41] the redistricting is currently underway and is being voted on by the board on February 4th currently potomac view students are being proposed to move into the woodbridge area school in cahoots to that we're actually looking at potomac shores number two and doing that redistricting at the same time and that's looking to relieve the overcrowding in the cherry hill area you have covington harper paddy elementary and other surrounding schools that are either right at or over capacity utilization and the opening of potomac shores number two is going to alleviate

[00:25:13] that overcrowding in that area next we have pennington and washington reed pennington is an approved 10 classroom addition and is looking to be delayed one year we are still having permitting issues with the city manassas as that permitting process is different than prince william county's permitting process which is delaying the addition the addition will not give the school additional capacity but it would help house the current students at the school so it's going to add general education classrooms it's going to add a science lab it's going to add special education classroom for the current lottery

[00:25:51] students that are in the school looking at the Washington Reed preschool center that is an approved 15 classroom addition and is still on track for the 27 28 school year this addition is help is intended to help the growing VPI population our preschool students ECSC and it's going to actually help if there is overcrowding in that central region in that East region some of those preschool programs can then move to Washington Reed which then will allow some of those capacities to increase on the eastern and central side of the county this is going to be a renovation as well and it's going to be an HVAC replacement ADA improvements and additional parking to accommodate the

[00:26:30] staff with that 15 classroom addition next we have two projects that are in design and that's the nooksville school edition which is an approved 10 classroom addition scheduled to open in the 27 28 school year and this proposed addition is adding to the K through 5 portion of the school not the 6 through 8 but it is designed to be built for the middle school specs so it could be used for multi-purpose in addition we have the more stellar 10 classroom edition and that is proposed to open in the 28 29 school year and the goal is to add the

[00:27:07] additional classroom spaces and support spaces to help with the overcrowding at the noxville school in the new residential developments along that vent hill corridor that are forthcoming our consideration is redistricting with looking in the 2027 school year to redistrict at the elementary and middle school level because of the noxville school being a k through eight we would need to our goal would be to keep that boundary coincident and we would have to move students at both the elementary and middle school levels at that time we could utilize space in bull run and gainesville middle school and look at possibly reduce the overcrowding at reagan at that time too we could

[00:27:46] better utilize the elementary schools in linton hall corridor to bring those upwards of 80 and 90 percent of capacity utilization as we are seeing lower enrollment in that area next is our 14th high school overview and considerations and our 2630 cip it was approved as a 1400 capacity high school and it was going to be scheduled to open in the 29-30 school years. The school is intended to receive the overcrowding relief for the Eastern high schools and it was looking to include a robotics aquatic drone lab and a school-based clinic. Some considerations we need to look at are the

[00:28:24] net transfer rates that are contributing to the overcrowding at many of the schools. Osborne Park for example has 34% more students attending their school than are actually residing within their attendance area and Potomac has 24 or fewer students than are actually zoned to the attendance area.

[00:28:41] So we would want to look at our transfer policy and our specialty program policy to see how we could better accommodate some of what the overcrowding is occurring with our transfers and our specialty programs. When the school is slated to open, we are looking to have roughly 1,000 seats of space amongst the 13th high schools we do have.

[00:29:01] And then in 20, 31, 32, we would have upwards of 2,000 vacant seats across our 13 high schools. Looking at the capacity of all of our schools, we are seeing a lot of capacity out on the western side of the county. And then looking at all of our schools in totality, in 28-29, we have 1,200 vacant seats amongst our 13 high schools.

[00:29:27] And looking in 2032, we would have upwards of 2,000 vacant seats in our 13 high schools. If we were to build the 14th high school, we would have 2,400 vacant seats in 2930 and then upwards of 3,400 vacant seats in 2032-33.

[00:29:45] Just looking at the seven schools that could be impacted by redistricting, we're only looking at 435 seats of overcrowding. But if we were to look at countywide redistricting, could we resolve all these issues without building the 14th high school?

[00:30:00] And that's where we get into our scenario A and B. And I want to pass it back over to Mr. Bach. Thank you, Scott. And I'll be covering with you updated cost estimates on this slide. So I want to call your attention to the left-hand part of the slide with the table from FY2026.

[00:30:19] And you can see there we were estimating about $200 million, just a hair under $208 million for the building site and soft costs. The site acquisition, that is a tangible asset that we do own. was a 16 million dollar acquisition and you can see the total all-in estimate in the previous cip was just a hair under 224 million um when we and actually that was all pre-designed we were in the design phase with the dlr group they uh this past year a full engagement effort to uh come up and and kind of solidify the design and now we have a design that we can respond to pretty confidently That was a pretty rough estimate pre-design.

[00:30:59] Now we have a design, and you can see the estimate jumped up pretty significantly, and I want to call your attention to the table on the right. The first column, Downey & Scott, that's a leading construction management and estimation firm that is widely respected across the state of Virginia.

[00:31:18] We have a relationship with Downey & Scott. They certify all of our estimates in our CIP, and we've used them. And when we saw this estimate at almost $350 million, we were surprised. But, you know, when we talked to Downey and Scott, it was really, it came down to now we have a design that we can respond to, how that design sits on the site.

[00:31:41] And I want to call attention to the board. It is an extremely challenging site because the grade drops about 100 feet across the site. So to situate a building on that site requires significant site work. And you can see it's almost $70 to $75 million of site work.

[00:31:58] Typically, a construction project for a high school, you might consider about $20 to $25 million for site work. And you can see there's a substantial difference here. With that first estimate, we wanted to go out and get additional independent estimates because we were a little bit surprised by the price.

[00:32:15] So we asked the DLR group to reach out to a couple additional firms on our behalf and to manage that process for us, independent of each other, they all came within about 3% of each other in cost, which is an indication that it's very accurate.

[00:32:32] So these are the updated costs, and you can see a pretty significant increase in the project. So with that now, I'm going to turn it over to Dave Beavers, or I'm sorry, to Justin, who's going to lead us through energy management and sustainability initiatives in the CIP.

[00:32:50] Justin? Thank You mr. Bach and good evening members of the board my portion of tonight's presentation is relatively brief I'm sharing some of our updates for the upcoming CIP and FY 27 much of this information will be familiar to you as we will share it in your November meeting however what we did want to provide tonight was a list of these school-based projects by location so our first slide is related to our LED upgrades we are targeting 22 schools in FY27 and we're looking to really get out of the LED transform retro retrofit business

[00:33:25] in the next couple of years but we do have a significant pocket these are the biggest priority target for us in terms of our energy conservation and efficiency and operation so we really do want to install as many of these new LED systems as we can what you're looking at on the slide the the top black font represents the 22 schools for FY27 the lower portion in the blue font represent schools tied to the FY 26 CIP and then out to the right would be part of Scenario B additional school projects that we would target in this upcoming year.

[00:33:59] The next slide is related to our outdoor learning environments. This is a big project for us. This is one of our major focuses in Elevate 2030 we are looking and from a facilities perspective one of our closest ties to the instructional learning and so we really want to target these.

[00:34:16] We have many school projects underway notably is our Occoquan Elementary School which is currently installing an outdoor learning environment. But we are looking at 28 schools in FY27 and looking to target and customize each of these learning environments to the unique learning requirements of those schools.

[00:34:34] So we're really excited about this work and something that we really look forward to bringing you updates in the coming years. Next slide we're looking at 41 retro commissioning projects. This is what I kind of call the under the hood work in facilities. This is when we go in and look at our building automation and HVAC systems and do a tune-up, so to speak, at midlife to ensure that it's operating correctly and that it's meeting its manufacturer's design life expectancy.

[00:35:01] However, as it pertains to the upcoming strategic plan, this is also a primary target for us in facilities to look at AI and generative technology innovations to improve our efficiency in our operations and help our maintenance teams be more proactive and less reactive in our responses.

[00:35:18] the last slide I'm going to share with you tonight is our solar PV we are looking at an additional six schools in FY 27 to install solar just of note any type of renewal energy renewable energy projects whether it's solar whether it's geothermal that's something that we will assess at every major project as part of Virginia High Performance Buildings Act so it's something that we will assess for our feasibility in every project that we approach we are looking at six schools in FY 27 and anticipate expanding that to more in future CIPs and with that I'm going to turn it over

[00:35:51] to Mr. Youssef to close us out it's my turn hi I'm Dave Beavers I'm with the budget department and I'm going to walk you through basically the highlights of the proposed CIP this first slide looks at new projects we've added to the CIP and and the highlights therein if you'll start on the left hand side you'll see the additions in the additions category we have 22 million dollars that we've added to the marsh stellar middle school addition and hvac replacement project

[00:36:27] this additional funding will allow for the inclusion of geothermal there and that'll greatly improve the efficiency of that system under renovations we see funding increases for both woodbridge middle school renovations and brentsville district high school renovations we also see the inclusion of the hampton middle school renovation as mr halsey pointed out facility modifications include kitchen upgrades at both coals elementary and neabsco elementary these projects were developed in coordination with the school food and nutrition services department we also see replacement of the press boxes at potomac high school and woodbridge high school to address

[00:37:06] some structural integrity issues the maintenance category includes roof replacements at marcellar middle and potomac high school significant sustainability investments in led upgrades outdoor learning environments and solar photovoltaic arrays at six schools we also see significant investment in replacing playgrounds at schools that are in these playgrounds that are in poor condition the life cycle replacement of school division equipment and assets will be a topic that we'll discuss further in the presentation please note that all of these projects are included in both scenario A and scenario B and I will

[00:37:45] discuss scenario A and scenario B right now the CIP presented to you as two different scenarios in the previous slide we showed projects that are added to both scenarios but scenario a includes 128.2 million dollars in additional funding for the 14th high school this additional funding is required for the project based on the independent review of plans to develop a more accurate cost estimate of 352 million dollars all told scenario B contemplates the discontinuation of the 14th high school construction project this reduces the cost of the CIP by a hundred and ninety

[00:38:24] one million dollars having removed the 14th high school new projects have been added which include constructing both East and West robotic centers the East robotic center is proposed for Garfield High School and the West robotic center is proposed for unity Reed High School these facilities are planned as school additions to provide additional space for robotics learning several energy Energy efficiency and sustainability measures are included in Scenario B.

[00:38:52] These include adding geothermal to the Bull Run Middle School HVAC replacement project, critical building automation system upgrades at 25 schools spread over the 5-year CIP window, and LED upgrades at 5 additional schools.

[00:39:07] As shown, Scenario A increases the CIP cost by $128.2 million. Scenario B decreases the CIP cost by $128.264 million. Thus, the overall CIP cost differential between the two scenarios amounts to a total of $256 million.

[00:39:29] Here we see the comparison of Scenario A to Scenario B within CIP project categories. Within the new construction category, Scenario A exceeds Scenario B by over $302 million, accounting for the inclusion of the 14th high school.

[00:39:46] Scenario B includes nearly $46 million more within the maintenance category, reflecting the investments there in energy efficiency and sustainability as well as HVAC improvements. Please note again the overall cost differential of $256 million between Scenario A and Scenario B.

[00:40:08] Here we're highlighting new facilities within the proposed CIP. showing several projects which are not receiving additional CIP funds but which are soon to be completed also note at the bottom of this table are two versions of the 14th high school corresponding to scenario A and scenario B here we'll look at additions to the proposed CIP we see an additional 22 million dollars added to the Marsteller middle school project for geothermal HVAC system and

[00:40:43] And we see at Pennington Traditional, we see a date change to May 2029 due to the permitting challenges with the City of Manassas. With the Marsteller Middle School Edition, the Pennington Edition, and the Dale City Elementary Edition, previously planned projects have now been rolled into the respective editions to accomplish all the projects at the same time, yielding greater efficiency and potential cost savings.

[00:41:09] The two robotic centers are shown here, but are only applicable to scenario B. Here we see major renovations that are included within the proposed CIP. Please note that the updated completion date for Vaughn Elementary is now June 2029.

[00:41:29] Based on external independent review of drawings and plans, additional CIP funding is requested for both Woodbridge Middle School and Burnsville District High School. The CIP also presents the inclusion as we've discussed of Hampton Middle School for renovation This renovation is scheduled for completion in 2032 at a total cost of 85 million dollars The proposed 22 FY 27 CIP includes a standard turf life cycle replacement At Potomac High School as well as the replacement of turf fields at middle schools over the next several years

[00:42:05] there were seven turf fields that were installed at middle schools which was originally funded by Prince William County by cooperative agreement Prince William County schools will pay half of the cost to replace these turf carpets so essentially we're paying for three and a half turf fields and Prince William County will pay for three and a half turf fields these fields are used by middle schools during the school day and then are available to the community for use at all other times as programmed by the county's parks department for your reference we've provided the turf field projects that we've included within the

[00:42:43] last two CIPs these cover new practice fields at all high schools in FY 26 as well as several turf field construction projects included in FY 25 here we see roof replacements and repairs within the CIP we continue to monitor and replace roofs on a schedule that considers planned life expectancy as well as annually updated condition assessments this year we started a structured formal program to monitor and replace assets that we already own we focused on five

[00:43:21] key asset categories as shown in the upper right portion of the slide this program builds on existing asset replacement strategies but puts in place a more strategic plan to address the full scope of school division assets there are more asset categories to include such as custodial equipment at schools and furniture at schools but these will require further development for inclusion in upcoming CIPs this first step represents a more analytical approach to monitoring and manage our existing assets to ensure that students and employees have safe and reliable equipment available for their continued use it will also reduce the administrative burden on school

[00:44:01] principles allowing them to more fully focus on their important jobs of leading student instruction. In summary here we see the net impact to the CIP for significant changes by project type from the FY26-30 CIP.

[00:44:21] These projects from the last year's CIP whose funding schedule has progressed out of the CIP in FY27, these progressions of funding for multi-year funded projects lead to a natural decrease in the cost of the new CIP.

[00:44:37] However, looking at specific categories, we see the impact of older projects progressing out and new projects being added to the CIP. In both scenarios, we see increases to major renovations, interior upgrades, minor renovations, equipment replacements, and roof replacements.

[00:44:58] In scenario A, we see an increase of $73.3 million for new facilities, a decrease of 25 million in additions an increase of 446 40 446 000 for hvac projects and 28.1 million for sustainability projects in scenario b with a discontinuation of the 14th high school we see we see a reduction of 24.5 million dollars in new facilities but an increase of 39.4 million in HVAC improvements and an increase of $33 million in sustainability projects.

[00:45:34] All right. With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Youssef for the last section. Thank you, Mr. Beavers. This looks at the total CIP costs for both Scenario A and Scenario B, and it compares it to our previous year's CIP.

[00:45:58] Overall, when you look at Scenario A, the CIP increases by $282 million. And in scenario B, the CIP increases by 25.5, which is a smaller increase as compared to the 282 million.

[00:46:18] And we do have the different categories in terms of our total CIP costs. More importantly, we look at the next slide, which talks about how we fund our CIP.

[00:46:34] PWCS finance its CIP mainly through bonds, which are reserved for large-scale projects with asset useful life succeeding 20 years. Projects with near-term and mid-term useful lives and timelines are typically supported by operating cash.

[00:46:54] And in certain cases, we do dip into our profits and get funding through profits. Again, scenario A will require additional funding of $282 million, and scenario B is much smaller at $25 million.

[00:47:16] So in summary, Scenario A will require significantly greater resources for major capital projects, while Scenario B provides a limited but targeted increase supporting fiscal discipline.

[00:47:35] Bonds, as I said earlier on, we issue bonds to fund most of our CIP. Scenario A will lead to the issuance of $239 million more in bonds over the next five years for our CIP.

[00:47:56] This represents a significant expansion of the division's borrowing capacity and potential increase in debt service obligations. On the other hand, scenario B will require $54 million less in bonds than previously estimated in the CIP.

[00:48:16] The reduction in borrowing would help limit the growth in outstanding debt and ease financial pressures associated with bond repayments. And just between the two scenarios, the additional bonds are at $293 million.

[00:48:35] If scenario A is chosen, the next three bond issuance would total $923 million, which is approximately $307 million each. This would represent the highest level of bond sales in the past 20 years, and it is unprecedented and would push the limits of Prince William County's debt capacity.

[00:48:57] And we have to be mindful that they do have projects, too, that they would like to fund and they have to count both schools and the county. Such significant increases in borrowing could create additional fiscal constraints and heightened importance of careful debt management strategies moving forward.

[00:49:19] In either case, we have to be very mindful of what debt we issue and how we repay it. Debt service. Debt service refers to the payments made on outstanding bonds, including both principal and interest. These payments represent a significant financial obligation for the school division and are essential factor in our long-term fiscal planning.

[00:49:44] After all, as we issue bonds, we have to pay it back. Under scenario B, we have $80 million in debt service savings as compared to scenario A. Debt service is funded mainly through the county transfer, which is the primary source for these obligations.

[00:50:06] Any increase in debt service payments will directly reduce the funds available for the operating budget, potentially impacting day-to-day school operations and programs. So 80 million dollars would definitely, an increase over five years would be significant to our operating budget.

[00:50:32] So we reached this decision point for the school board. In light of declining enrollments, rising estimated costs for the 14th high school, we implore and treat the school board to determine whether to proceed with constructing the new facility in scenario A or to discontinue the project in scenario B. That is really the crux of our CIP this year and it is a recalibration in reset that we are going through for this current fiscal year upcoming fiscal year. And finally we

[00:51:10] have information of our CIP and budgeting timeline. Obviously we are here today for the work session on the fourth the superintendent will present the FY 2027 proposed budget and CIP to the school board.

[00:51:25] We have a public meeting on February 9th 2026 official public hearing on February 18th 2026 we do our school board work session for final markup on the FY 27 CIP and budget on March 11th the school board approves the FY 2027 CIP budget and submits to the board of county supervisors on March 18th the chair of the school board presents to the school board's budget to the BOCS on April 7th

[00:52:01] and by April 21st the Board of County Supervisors approve the FY 2027 school budget. That concludes our presentation. We'll hand it back for any questions.

[00:52:18] - Shaquille real quick on this slide to 46. So I understand scenario A over the long term four years five years we borrow 1.1 million billion scenario be 815 million explain to me I don't know understand the green stuff on the fiscal change grand total 238 and grand total minus 54 what is that what am I looking so when you compare scenario a to what we had last year projected for bond sales last year oh I see so you had from what we thought we were gonna spend last year

[00:52:53] Yes, so so so as I look at scenario a 238 is more money than we thought we would spend last year Correct and scenario B will be 54 million less less than we thought last year over the course Craig how's it 54 me shouldn't be more than 54 million less. No, it's 869 It's the same and we're doing 815 So if you look at the difference between scenario a and scenario B vertically, that's

[00:53:30] That I can see. I can see $300 million, right? Yeah. I mean, that's the real number. That's the real savings. But we're taking some of that $300 million and doing some other projects with it. Correct. We are adding projects to scenario B.

[00:53:48] So that's why it's not a pure $300. So the second question I have, just I think for everyone to know, just remind us, when we do bond sales, the bond issuers and the people who buy our bonds expect us to use that money on new projects, or are we allowed to use them on remodeling? So we typically use it for a combination of major renovations and new projects because some of our renovations are essentially almost new.

[00:54:16] I can speak for that, Vern. So what's a major renovation? Like, what's an example of that? Like, I don't know. Is that new classrooms in a school? Is that considered major renovations? There's capacity enhancements. When a school undergoes a major surgery, if I can use that term. But I'll ask Vern to add to that.

[00:54:34] Well, you're the money guy. But like a robotics center, is that new construction, or is that remodeling in a small way? That's an addition. That's an addition. So we could use bonded money for that. Yes, if it is, we anticipate the useful life of that particular addition to be more than 20 years.

[00:54:52] Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 20 years is because our bonds are sold and paid over a 20-year period. So that's really the key there. Yes, sir. We use this thing over 20 years. Is this something capacity building? Is that right, Vern? Yes. Okay. - That's correct.

[00:55:07] - I just wanted to be clear on that. 'Cause I know you've sort of slapped my hand in past years on trying to borrow money for renovating or remodeling smaller stuff or like a series of small things. Like if I wanted to remodel 20 small things at 5 million each, is that something in a-- - We typically look at operating cash to do those.

[00:55:32] - Okay, questions, Ms. Williams. - I don't have a lot of questions. I just, the outdoor spaces that we're looking at, should we do that I would just like to put in a request that we're mindful of the employees who are currently doing that type work and within buildings and utilizing their expertise because I know we do a group a lot of opinions are involved but I know we have some really successful stories right now so I just wanted to make sure we captured that any of the renovations that we're

[00:56:08] doing on elementaries do we have a list of current elementary schools that don't have like well I know we're doing the mobile apps some music space or as we renovate those those are the two things that we're also keeping in mind correct absolutely we we are addressing that and through some of the renovations where we don't have like a string space we are adding string spaces specialty spaces adding spaces for ESL and being mindful of that so absolutely and to address the your question or comment about engaging with folks at schools who are champions of outdoor classrooms we're definitely engaging with those folks making sure we hear their voice how they

[00:56:47] are currently utilizing those spaces and what enhancements we can make to those spaces so we're definitely gonna capitalize on those champions and build them into the process thank you I really appreciate that and then the option for us to have robotic spaces depending on which way it goes love that and then those robotic spaces would be used like for tournaments so they'd be tall enough for drones and all of our programming yeah to in the in the 14th high school design that's how it was designed to also be leveraged for the school space during the day but also have

[00:57:23] other schools utilize that during the day and even after school hours so we would anticipate that in scenario b where we're proposing the two additional robotic centers making sure that they're available for competitions designed first to be able to accommodate that but also making those available for other schools to to have that advantage okay and then along the same lines as we have space available in our buildings one of the things that I do know because robotics is my life now we don't have spaces in our buildings so oftentimes teams have to like pack up everything and they're sharing a space with something else so as we have the ability

[00:58:01] to have for your space I'm just asking facilities to maybe work with schools to have mindful spaces for that especially as the program continues to grow because I'm adding more programming programming into robotics so that's the thing that I hear the most practice space is not available or it's being taken for other programs which is fine but it looks as if we'll have space moving down so just asking me mindful keep that in mind yeah I don't know if that could be added to some sort of index but I know you guys have wonderful ones and then my last one is regardless of the scenario can we please make sure like will we have any more LED lights to replace had to put a joke in there about LEDs because either

[00:58:38] scenario has them but I noticed if we do we don't do the high school there's additional schools if we do then there's a set amount will this will that be the end of it Justin I think that closes us out it's pretty darn close because I think in scenario B we pick up six additional sites but Justin you want to comment on that yes I've made it my personal mission to close out LED upgrades in the next two years I'll look into it and let you know if there any lingers and we'll try to add them thanks what are we without our humor but that the robotic space is really important as we can because we're adding like iq and a few other programs so thank you and

[00:59:11] thank you justin miss wall thank you uh thank you very much this presentation is awesome um lots and lots of information um not as fun of a cip hearing the high costs and um the following enrollment you know but I have a couple of questions on page 38 and 39 I believe I did ask this before but maybe it would be helpful for the benefit of anyone listening the cost for renovations have dramatically increased from past years

[00:59:49] you know like 2020 2021 2022 and so I think it would be helpful maybe just kind of put that out there why it's costing I mean you know 79 Fred Lynn 74 million Vaughan 85 million Hampton just kind of put that in context in case individuals are gonna wonder like why are we this is such a big cost for renovation used to be that you could build a middle school for this amount so that's my first question that I think people might want to hear about and have eliminated and then my other question was on page 39 I'll just put them to

[01:00:25] both out here the fiscal years 26 CIP high schools new practice turf fields I'm I'm reading that all of the high schools are going to get a practice turf field. We're going to bring that up to like an equitable distribution of turf fields for practice fields. I thought you might ask that.

[01:00:41] And that was in the, so I pulled up last year's CIP so I could address that quickly. Okay, great. We do. We have 26. We bring, we add two turf fields into the mix or refurbish 27. So over the next four years to 2029, we're refurbishing eight high school turf fields.

[01:01:00] And those were prioritized because they're pretty close to their life cycle. And also that was that $24 million item that we put in there in FY26 that was planned in that year's CIP. So, yes, we have eight of those practice fields being addressed.

[01:01:17] Great. And I know last year I think we detailed which ones they were. It's not in this. Obviously, I'm interested in the one high school in my district. Which year would you? Which is Battlefield. Battlefield 2029. Oh, I thought it was sooner. It's 29. That was in last year's CIP.

[01:01:32] Okay. Wow. Okay. I thought it was, like, 2027. I'll double-check, but I'm showing 29, but I'll double-check for you. Okay. Yeah, my recollection is that there was a facility assessment done in, like, age of when it was – I can't remember.

[01:01:55] Say that one more time. In the CIP, it was, like, far out, and then it was – I asked it to be evaluated, and then it was re-evaluated and moved up. I could, in full disclosure, maybe looking at an older version of that. - That's correct. - 'Cause we did adjust. - Ms. Wall is correct. When we went back and did the evaluation, Battlefield was one of the oldest.

[01:02:15] And so that's how Battlefield got moved. So you are correct, in fact, that we addressed that last year. - That's what I thought. - And I can confirm. - Let's just make sure that everybody who's doing-- - But it's sooner than 29, I thought. - It is. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay, let's confirm that when you get a chance. - Okay, will do. - Great, I'm advocating for my district.

[01:02:33] Most of this is happening in different parts of the district, which is fine. but there are just a few little things here and there, some LED lights and a few things that are Gainesville District. But that's a big one that the community would really value. Okay, and then I think, I guess I didn't have any other questions, but I do appreciate the candor on the costs and the bonds and everything else.

[01:02:54] And I really do take that seriously, and I think we need to really think heavy, long and hard, about the financial implications of the two scenarios. So I do appreciate all the work in laying it out for us and helping us understand what's at stake from a financial standpoint from a reputational standpoint fiscal reputation standpoint and just you know wise use of resources.

[01:03:20] So I appreciate the team on all of this. Thank you very much. - Just to remind the board and then we'll go to Lisa. Many of you have been briefed on this presentation prior to this meeting this is again another time to take a look at it. At next week's school board meeting on board matters on for information and further discussion is scenario A and scenario B.

[01:03:44] And then, and certainly if you can think of questions, concerns you might have more than what you've already had, you can share them with the administration and staff. We'll hear from them next week at the school board meeting. So it'll be fully public again on this discussion.

[01:03:59] And then coming back to the first meeting in February, the board is expected if they have not done it yet, which there's no hurry to do it tonight or to do it, um next week but that first meeting in february we have to make a decision on scenario a or scenario b uh to move forward with the final budgeting process so you have some time to take a look at it certainly hear from your constituents on that certainly feel free to ask your questions ms dargapur oh sorry really quick yeah the question i asked do you want to answer that now about the middle school renovations or do you want to push it off yeah come back you can come back to it okay - Okay, thanks.

[01:04:38] - Ms. Zargarpur. - All right, thank you. Not in these, in any renovations, but something that does come up from time to time, and I'm wondering how we handle it, is there are times when I've visited some of my elementary schools, and they will have some special needs kids, a runner perhaps, very young children, and they would like fences around playgrounds.

[01:05:02] How do principals advocate for that? And what's the process for that look like? that's obviously not going to be a million dollar project but it's a safety concern and yeah so that's my question yeah we we have a policy and a regulation in place for principals that if they're seeking a modification to their site they would submit a work order a team from facilities would go out and investigate the site bring in permitting engage with the county on permitting and then we would circle back with the school of any costs that it may be incurred at the school level or through facilities so just to just to answer the question on fencing

[01:05:41] around playgrounds we have entertained that with county code it is problematic for egress defense in a playground because they do need to be able to have an exit from the playground should an emergency occur and to have it fenced in with four sides with with a single point of entry is problematic and and code would not permit us to do that I did not think about that thank you then my last question about playgrounds I remember when we were first on the board Adele Jackson was wanted to make sure that we had accessible playgrounds and I know we

[01:06:16] put something into so as we are looking at any renovations we're going to we're still keeping with that plan right absolutely thank you as we renovate elementary schools we are renovating the playground to include universal design thank you I've also seen students who will have temporary walkers or something with wheels and in different mmm spaces and the they often cannot access anything where there is mulch so are we thinking about because that can

[01:06:54] happen at any time people can have an accident or a temporary need it may not be permanent but I have seen kids sort of limited to black tops before so that's a a concern about the mulch too we do use a product on our playgrounds it's not mulch it's it's engineered uh product called fibar and it does meet ada requirements uh for students with mobility issues thank you mr will yeah thank you so much i don't really have a lot to add to this i do appreciate the presentation and the breakdown no go ahead i do have asked i'm more specific this

[01:07:31] year i'm not just going to be broadly about give me something for dumfries can you guys give me a quote not for me personally like for me to buy but um on a climate controlled storage facility and a new refrigerator for uh dumfries elementary sure we can look into that thank you i'd appreciate that um and then talking about program capacity i do like hearing that schools with the expansion of the pre-k will also be looking to take some of the classrooms out of the um on-site programs you know it is a you know misperception from some i've heard come speak you know although you know

[01:08:10] patty has two pre-k within the building that has no ability to alleviate a 200 student over capacity um so you know but in the future though those two rooms being across the street could possibly be prime opportunities just to have some additional space but that's all i have to say so thank you all so much tonight mr i just want to say thank you scott i think you did a great job not that everybody else didn't but Scott you know Scott did a great job um I I appreciate the thought going into Noakesville elementary school and utilizing that for different purposes possibly middle school

[01:08:50] adjacent because it's you know everything's growing everything's moving around in the Brunsville district so I appreciate the thought going into the future planning and you know I love hearing the word redistricting because I think it solves all of our problems so thank you guys for that and i appreciate this great presentation again dr latif can i clarify one thing miss wall i i apologize i was looking at an earlier version of the cip and vince is sitting behind me our supervisor of construction he has confirmed for me that fall of 2026 will be the battlefield turf practice practice field so thank you that fits better with my memory it also fits better with

[01:09:28] what I've told my community yeah yeah which you're good my apologies okay thanks and that is this fall 26 right yes yes mr. Jesse well I feel like the person is gonna get a beat up on this one we delayed the 14th high school and sort of ironic that we're at where we are now but just a couple questions we

[01:09:59] paid 16 million for the land what are we gonna do with the land so we still you know that's something we have to decide and there's there's a process of how we sell and obtain proceeds from the sale of our property specifically land I'm gonna punt it to mr. Anderson if he wants to provide some additional information sure I mean to me it's several steps down the road because you get it once the once the board makes a decision it depends on whether we have

[01:10:37] land or not have the land so we've got the land and mr yusuf is correct but were we to decide to sell it we have to ask the county for permission to keep those proceeds from the sale and there may be other some but but obviously it could be repurposed for other projects if there were projects that we thought should be placed there right so i don't think discussions have been made about what to do with it because we don't know whether it's even going to be available depending on what the board's guidance is the other question I have is somewhat related to the Board of

[01:11:13] Supervisors I think it's a summit road revamping that they're doing now and it is I don't know how much that cost but it's probably a big big cost so I don't know if they're going to feel somewhat we're saving a lot of money as you say but they have also expended a lot of money because that road is probably in a position now that they can't stop they're going to have to finish it

[01:11:45] Mr. Jesse we're we are already participating in the those road improvements from a financial standpoint the school division has a number of requirements for the entry into the site so we've come to agreement with with the county in terms of those road improvements and we're paying for those so it's on a limited basis not a significantly large number

[01:12:20] but we are participating in that project so you know if you listen to the last school board meeting I sort of ended the meeting with my concerns is you know as chairman of things that I worry about on a daily basis and things that I continue to worry about are you know what I call headwinds and challenges that we're gonna face moving forward as a school division tonight and we did live stream this meeting because I felt and the board felt it's extremely important for the public to be very aware keenly aware of the challenges the school divisions face.

[01:12:57] And pages 12 and 13 scream you know our enrollment drop over the next five to six seven years. And it is a significant drop. It is close to I think what was it like about 5,000 kids.

[01:13:13] What is it Vern. So almost 6,000. - 6,000 total, yeah. - Yeah, so about 6,000 kids. You're looking at about seven to 8%, maybe 8% of the entire school division.

[01:13:31] When you lose kids, that means we close classrooms. When we close classrooms, we have undercapacity as pointed out in the program capacity and discussions earlier. When you have less underutilizing capacity, you have less classrooms, you need less employees.

[01:13:51] And I think it's very important as the largest employer in the county and one of the largest in the state that we be absolutely transparent with everyone that as we are losing students, we will have to shrink our workforce if this comes to fruition, which based on the projections and the trends so far looks like that's happening.

[01:14:14] We're making a tough decision on the redistricting coming up in the next few weeks on closing in elementary school, which has never been done in the county. in recent times. And it is important for the public to be well aware of where we are and the challenges the school board, the administration, and our community faces as we look at these things.

[01:14:38] You know, when the school division, I think the discussions to build the 14th high school even begun prior to 2018 when I got on the board. And it was something that at the time, based on the projections we saw then, We needed, we were bursting at the seams at many of our high schools.

[01:14:58] If you look at pages 12 and 13 of this, so that's number one. I think it's important for the public to realize we have significant challenges of enrollment. Number two, you know, whether we build the new high school with scenario A or we don't in scenario B, we will be faced with significant high school redistricting.

[01:15:19] The thing that people in this county least will like to see and is among the least popular things the school board has to do, and that's redistricting. And under every scenario, whether we build it, whether we don't build it, whether we delay it, redistricting must happen.

[01:15:38] And if you take a look at the capacities of our high schools, we have to make some changes. And so there will be some tough decisions coming up in the next few years by this school board and the next school board on what we do with that, because we have to do that and the data here screams redistricting because if we can redistrict, we can really do a lot of great things as far as ballasting capacity, ballasting our employees' needs and potentially addressing our workforce needs or maybe not having to reduce the workforce as much.

[01:16:16] And so those are significant things that matter. These all cost real dollars, they're taxpayer dollars and we as board members are, you know, charged with making sure the tax paying dollars are spent in a responsible way. And I think as we look at scenario A and B, each board member has to make that, you know, decision of where we look to go.

[01:16:39] This new high school at the cost we're estimating down here, even at the lowest cost, you're looking at close to $230,000 per seat in the high school. I don't know, I had asked in my briefing, What is the average per seat cost for a high school in the United States?

[01:16:55] Do we know that answer? What I did, Dr. Lateef, is we looked locally in northern Virginia, and we do have a benchmark in Loudoun County. And roughly, we looked at all-in construction costs, and for their high school, they were looking at about $780 a square foot all-in, permitting everything.

[01:17:15] And with our 14th high school, and they're building their 14th, So our 14th came in at about 1,063 square foot, so almost $400 north of what they were paying for in Loudoun. But did you do a calculation on per seat cost? We did not do the per seat.

[01:17:31] We did by square foot. Okay, can we do that next time? Because I asked for that. Okay, thank you. So just based on our numbers, if you compare, now Colgan was built many years ago. Based on their cost in my sort of rough calculations, that was around $25,000 per seat.

[01:17:49] Or no, wait, what did I do here? Hold on one sec, I gotta get this right so I don't screw this up. It was significantly cheaper. It's about 10 times the cost now. Obviously it was 57,000 per seat. At Colgan, this would be theoretically 220, 210,000.

[01:18:05] I don't know what Gainesville would be, but it's just a number of what this would cost. But more importantly than the cost, because I've had no problems, as everyone knows, spending money as the school board chair. have zero issues with that for needs that benefit our students.

[01:18:23] But as we look at the construction cost relative to our needs, it does not make a lot of sense. And then when we talk about redistricting and I appreciate Ms. Tradenik's enthusiasm for it, I would also caution, you know, with that enthusiasm comes the idea that we need to entertain all options.

[01:18:49] And you know I'm gonna say all the unpopular things 'cause that's my job. And even based on not building the new high school the vacant seats at the high school level remain at a level that that's one high school. It's about 1700 students.

[01:19:05] We could shut down a high school and have same capacity. So we could theoretically not build this high school and shut down a high school save a lot of money. What I also didn't hear tonight which I'd like to hear Vern at the next meeting is What you've told us is the cost of building a high school and with the savings of building a high school, Mr. Youssef, what is the cost of operating a high school on a yearly basis?

[01:19:26] Because that's also the savings we'll have if we don't build this high school, is the cost of operating a building, heating it, cooling it, LED lighting it, you know, all of that drama that goes along with it. That is savings as well, because what you talked about savings today is just construction savings.

[01:19:44] It's not the operation savings of an actual high school. So I think that's really important for everyone to understand as well as they make this decision. But when it comes to redistricting, so I said something radical about possibly closing a high school, which I don't think we do, but you never know.

[01:20:04] I look at things like the Noakesville school K through eight. Does it make sense to have a K through eight school there? Should that be made a full middle school or a full elementary school? And do we do something else out there? I am very open to, you know, changes that address the needs of our students and make sure that we have capacity and proper utilization across the board and that we offer the best facilities and options for our students.

[01:20:33] So there is nothing that's off the table for me. And we have really serious, serious things that we have to deal with. There's an economy that's not gonna be as good as it has been the last 10 years. We don't know what our funding's gonna look like moving forward, we don't know if we can continue spending the way we've been spending on a variety of different things.

[01:20:55] And so I think we have to be very considerate of these things as we make these big decisions. And I appreciate the new strategic plan, which talks about one of the ways to utilize, and you mentioned it here in the presentation, universal pre-K, we could add 5,000 kids to the division by doing universal pre-K, filling up seats that we need, that we have capacity for in potentially keeping teachers folks employed that we might otherwise not not need if we continue to see this thing.

[01:21:27] So these are sort of and I apologize this board weighs what to do. These are the serious things we have to consider as we make a decision moving forward on not just scenario A scenario B but on this year's budget and how this board wants to move forward and with what strategic plans we want to do with the strategic plan.

[01:21:54] what ideas we want to fund so with that Mr. Jesse I appreciate all your comments a couple things to keep in mind also the cost of doing things has drastically increased lately and it's probably going to continue to increase for a while so that's part of the factors that we look at but I do have a concern with pre-k universal pre-k where in the heck are we going to put all these people because the in the pre in our elementary schools and so

[01:22:28] forth right now it is very difficult because my understanding every pre-k room has to have a restroom so that's very difficult and I don't you know we're talking about money going out the when I believe in universal pre-k I'm just not sure where in the heck we're going to put all these kids when we do that so that's a concern I have going forward here thank you we will come to the board with a full proposal on universal pre-k we are looking at everything from our market share of school-age children that

[01:23:06] will qualify for pre-k as well as building capacity as you see we have plenty of capacity if we redistrict we can solve some of the concerns that you're talking about but we will I don't want to prematurely put anything out there because we just launched the strategic plan it hasn't even been voted on yet so we don't even know where the board will end up on universal pre-k until the the vote is approved for the strategic plan so I think it's premature to talk about any plans for anything that the board has not yet approved but once it is if it is approved we will have a full comprehensive

[01:23:45] proposal that will be driven by research and studying what has occurred throughout the country on universal pre-k and put something for that is responsible that takes into consideration all of the factors I always think that if we're going to vote on a pre-k we need the information before we vote I'll leave that to the board to decide what you would like to do but it is not possible to yes we can do universal pre-k there'll be many different scenarios on how we deliver on that it's not going to be a one-size-fits-all but looking at

[01:24:21] the data that you saw today we certainly have capacity within our school system to take in more students and it would support and in some ways stop some of the hemorrhaging of just like Matt said before students do come into the district he gave the scenario of the the faucet being on but the drain is still open we are not capturing students that we could capture that would do not come to our school system because they start somewhere else in pre-k so this is an opportunity just like we have mitigation strategies for you know under utilization redistricting is one of them having universal pre-k is another

[01:24:58] opportunity for us to bring in additional students into our school system so I think it's a viable option that the board should definitely consider miss wall along this same train of thought I was looking at the data from the video we on homeschool students and religious exemption students and that's also on the rise in Virginia and it has been on the rise in Prince William as well so those are also students that maybe they've opted out.

[01:25:33] But if we could do something different or better or somehow we could maybe try to capture some of those students and bring them back in if we provide if we listen to why they left and how we can bring them back in. I think it was something like 3,000 students or something like that potentially in Prince William.

[01:25:51] I can't remember exactly it was under 3 it was under 3,000 but I think it was around 25 2,800 or something like that.

[01:25:57] Students who have opted to homeschool in Prince William County. Well, we don't know the exact number will but we'll have it prepared for the next meeting. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Blake. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation as well. I do have one question or just point out like so this 300 that's like 350 million right. It's for only a 1,400 seat school not even a full size high school. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That was it. That's my only question. All right. Thanks.

[01:26:37] - Yeah, I mean, look, this is, we have some tough choices. I think there, you know, I think Mr. Jesse's correct, right? Costs will continue to go up. If you're gonna build this high school, this will be the time to build it. I wouldn't, you know, and, but I think you have to take a look at, you know, do we need the high school?

[01:26:55] You know, I'm in the position of, as you heard, considering, you know, do we keep all our high schools? You know, and are there schools that we can sort of reduce in size and save money and all with the eye to improve student performance.

[01:27:12] And so in the end, whatever decisions we make, I have made the decisions based on what I believe will improve student performance across this division. Universal Pre-K is well known to be something that drives student performance incredibly and it's the cheapest investment one can make to improve student performance in the long term.

[01:27:32] It's long overdue and I think Prince William County being the only school division in the commonwealth to do it independent of whatever Richmond or Washington DC decides to do or not decides to do 'cause we can't wait for them. Offering high quality pre-K programs and I think Dr. McDade's had the experience of building high quality pre-K all day programs, not all day full time what do we call full day programs in the city of Chicago.

[01:28:00] We know they have significant benefits and like I said earlier I have no problem spending a dollar, if someone can prove to me that dollar goes to improving student performance. And if that does it, I have no qualms to borrow it, to use it, to spend it, operating cash on that to make that happen.

[01:28:19] So I think that's important. But we have a lot more discussions on this. I encourage the board to hear from their constituents. And I appreciate everyone's time tonight. And then with that, I think I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you.

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