I received an email from Brad Moulton that the School Board meeting did not end until 10:45 p.m. last night. I'll have a more detailed report later including a discussion on the building plan (a conversation that was reportedly heated to the point of being uncivil) and on the PSSA test scores.
The Express-Times did have a report from Andrea Eilenberger (read it here) that focused on the building proposal. In this report it states that the NASD has gone forward with plans to build a new 7th and 8th grade middle school at a cost of $43 million with $58 million budgeted for the entire project. $4.5 million of this cost is earmarked for a pool. Board member Tom Maher requested a public referendum on the pool issue, which was turned down by the Board.
Bids on the project are expected in May and the public will be able to review these plans at a public hearing on January 9, 6:30 p.m. The resolution that was approved also states that project descriptions can be viewed at the District offices between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. beginning December 18.
Will have more later, but in the meantime - what do you think? Should a referendum have been held on the pool? Should the NASD be moving forward with this project at this time? Were you as surprised as I was that the pool was being built at the Middle School instead of the planned athletic center at the HS? Should the project descriptions be put online to make them as accessible as possible? Share your thoughts - and enjoy the holiday!
15 comments:
I am not so sure that it is a go for the pool. I am shocked to read that the taxpayers will not be asked to vote about the pool. They do as they chose.The plans do show where a pool would fit in with the rest of the building if was built. I think they are planning to also build a new sports area arena whether the pool is a go or not. I can see $$$$$ and cost going way above and beyond with the new facade by adding in all the red brick and stone. Of course this is no extra cost to the projected building. A community historical look is in the making after the Whitfield House since it seems to the the community of Nazareth "choice building". I think the old(boro hall) and new libraries have more the sense of the community. Again it is a school in Upper Naz make it fit in with the rest of school in nasd not one historical building. I guess this will only set the stage for higher future building cost as more additions and building are built with stone and red brick modeled after Nazareth community buildings. How many people ever went to the Whitfield House? And what about the future looks of the building to be added between the hs and new ms.What will they look like? I guess a mix of the two? Any new anything looks nice put money in educating students. I read that the ground bore samples tested well for solid rock. Some mention of a possible underground stream that flows thru that area. I have just heard this morning for the first time, has anyone else heard of such? I hope the same way over budget mistakes do not happen again like they did when the hs auditorium was built.
I did ask specifically last night if the "Colonial Look" added any cost to the project and was met with "deer in the headlight" looks. As if the architects and board were thinking, "how could anyone ask such a thing?"
My intention there was to guage the thought process wrt the brick work, etc. My impression was that the colinial look was always part of the plans. That's good in that it is not an adder. I still think it is a waste of money. They would not say how much it added to the overall $58MM budget.
I also asked about the bidding process (Lump sum bids or not) to try to remind them that they need to be able to control costs rigorously. (I am an engineer involved with larger capital projects for 14 years -- I'm very familiar with bidding, change orders, buget overruns, etc.)
They deifinitely said the right things -- the board reviews the bids for subcontractors instead of the construction manager. Also, the board will be able to "line item veto" any item they feel are too much (whether they will or not remains to be seen).
The public hearing in January should be attended by many people. It is our chance to have a say in this project. I think you need to submit questions in advance to be added to the agenda. Everyone else will be heard time permitting (that's what was written in the Act 34 resolution read last night).
This meeting is the public's chance to speak out against the pool. I think it is misguided to spend all this money on a pool when that money could go towards hiring the adequate amount of qualified teachers so our kids' classes don't have 23 kids in them. The district PSSA scores nees to be much better before we look at luxury items.
Scott
I was surprised the pool was included in this discussion. The MS will handle 2 grades, 7th and 8th. The HS athletic complex would handle 9-12 and theoretically locker rooms could be shared with other aspects of the facility.
Including the pool in this building is almost like a rider to a bill. It seems like they are trying to get through here, and if not then they can try again with the next building project. It doesn't seem to be money well-spent or planned for at this facility at this time.
Regarding the facade and colonial look, I don't get it. They are building in a field in upper nazareth, not within the borough.
It seems the architect had some ideas that weren't put to use as a result of the government center at Hall Park not being built and he decided to use the design elements here.
I would still like to see how the building arrangement of k-4, 5&6, 7&8, and 9-12 is an educational and financial benefit over k-5, 7&8, 9-12 or k-6, 7-9, 10-12.
Does anyone know if 5th graders will have secondary school length days? If so will the 5th graders take the same buses as 12th graders? Will borough students be bused beginning in 5th grade now that both the 5 & 6 and 7&8 grade buildings will not be located in the borough? What is the additional administration, staff(principal, vice-principal, secretary, custodial, nurses, counselers, etc) maintenance, transportation, and utility costs of this new building?
The structural cost is one thing, there are many ongoing costs that don't seem to have been discussed.
Has anyone heard any discussion about these points?
I was being a bit sacrastic in the 1st relpy, of course all this facade cost will increase cost of building. I have a hard time believing this was in the plans to start. It was a few meetings back when Mr. M. asked and again last night inquired as to...if a historical Naz rep was called upon to ask of their expert views on what the outside of a if I have to say so darn 7-8 grade middle school is in line with the looks of a colonial Naz historial building. Pretty soon we will have a little Vegas. Bulidings pretending to look like something they are not. Are the students going to be required to wear the Colonial era fashion times uniforms too? Remember these are schools in Upper Nazareth next to a building 9-12 school built years ago and huge mountainous quarry over fill walls. Maybe they want to create a distraction from that. We are not in historical downtown Bethlehem. Did anyone show a cost plan if a building was built with the materials being used at new maintaince or middle school building, they too look nice and are new. Looks are one thing but it is the teachers teaching and student learning... like the saying put your money where your mouth is.
Way over done.
We need a pool like we need another sinkhole!!!!! Are we really going to let the school district get away with these exorbitant costs???? The borough couldn't do a 2 million dollar expansion and 600plus people were up in arms. WHERE are these concerned citizens now????
It is about time that the district is finally going ahead with building a new school, regardless of the grades that will be housed in it. One has to wonder though if it will go up as quickly as the oh so much needed maintenance facility that is going a far way towards easing over crowded classrooms.
Putting the pool at the middle school is probably not the smartest idea. Who will use it other than the swim team? I doubt the MS students will use it for gym class, although that possibility exists if it were at the high school. And what will be the added cost to transportation to get the swim team from the high school to the new pool? I seriously doubt that they will put that requirement on the parents or the students themselves.
The cost of the pool is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of the new building. However, that money could be better spent on other initiatives that would directly lead to fixing the over crowding situation.
Yes, more teachers will help, but if they don't have a classroom in which they can teach, the problem still exists.
The pool should definitely go before a public referendum. But, looking at the timing (and I wonder if this is on purpose) for contract award (meaning the proposal needs to go out pretty soon), they avoid an election cycle when this could have been put on a ballot. And I doubt there would be a special election just for this initiative.
Not sure if it would apply in this case, but doesn't Pa have a "taj mahal" act which prohibits school districts from excessive spending in new construction?
A five million dollar swimming pool is NOT a drop in the bucket. It is an unnecessary expense that could go toward EDUCATING our students
Some nasd sport teams are in need of parents to drive or students drive themselves to all practices and home matches. I know swim team has a bus that takes them to the pool in Wilson. so I do not know what the cost would be to transport from the hs to the new 7-8 building.
The more area coverage, less water asorbed in the soil plus more weight put in that field ...sinkholes and run off creek flooding will become a more than likely a bigger problem. Next, the nasd would like to place a bridge over the creek to allow travel between the 2 schools. How much is a bridge going to cost, maybe that will be brick and stone also. This is a total seperate cost. Next the new sport complex where the gym will be a super size Whitfield house.
Take this and predict the future spending and it is out of control already.
Where is the nasd community task force meetings that use to take place about 4 times a year? Have not heard of any for this year yet? Not much time is given here for the public to see the big picture of 7-8b building plans for all view and question. Funny, I notice the school board meeting agenda was not posted until the afternoon of the actual meeting date of Monday Nov 20. This is the first time I have seen the district be that late(like 6 hours before meeting time) in annoucing it's plannned public school board meeting agenda. One is forced to ask" what are they trying to hide?
Different scale, but same issue as this summer's borough building - need vs. want.
We don't need a pool, we don't need a colonial or brick facade (that doesn't architecturally fit into where the building is being built), and I'm sure when the plans are made available there will be many more things we don't need included.
What we do need is space. The question becomes what is the best space utilization to provide the best education at the most efficient cost.
I'm not sold on having intermediate and middle school. I think this proposal is going forward without enough understanding of the future cost implications.
I also think the soil testing will need to be thorough. Field hockey moved off the main field for games this year because of a recession and played alongside the mitchell avenue lot. The site is located a stone's throw from a quary and sink holes have been in that very area previously.
I don't see the need for rushing/ramming this through (which given dates and procedures seems to be the case), that above everything should give us all cause for alarm.
Wow some interesting comments posted here. I have one question, What about the education of our students? There should be more discussions on the declining trend in the quality of education that the students of NASD are receiving. Many claim they have moved here because of the quality of education and yet the education of our students is decreasing. We have so many issues that are just sliding by parents and taxpayers. Parents and taxpayers must take a more active roll in making sure that this school district is meeting the educational needs of ALL students.
NOC-
If all of this appear "ramming/rushed" it's because of the tight schedule. The architect gave a 24 mos. construction schedule. If they get all the bids back by the end of May, they have to award and then begin. That means they would start construction July 2007 and finish July 2009. Move in Aug 2009. Not alot of time to get comfortable (let alone everything in it's place) in 1 months time.
Anon 12:03-
I have have been railing about this for awhile now. From attending the board meetings and listening to parents at the bus stop or kid's sporting events, it's evident that alot of people have moved here recently because of the reputation of the schools. However, I have looked closely at the PSSA data and it appears that Nazareth is only slightly above average in relation to the other schools in the Lehigh Valley. Is it a good school district? Yes. However, it can and should be better.
I agree with the majority here- It is concerning to me that the board considers an upgraded facade for a building- but not upgraded teachers. Not to say that the teachers as a whole aren't good, but has anyone paid attention to the board notes that point out few teachers with experience have been hired. Most teachers hired in the past 6 years have been teachers with 6 years or less experience. Many right out of college. Not that new teachers aren't good teachers- but with so many "new" teachers, who are they learning from. Not to mention that the district spends countless dollars on changes in curriculum- which poses problems with continuity in the instruction the kids get, and problems with millions of tax dollars wasted when the previously used series is abandoned, or in some cases materials not even utilized. On the PTA website (www.pta.org) there is a proposal outlined called the 65 percent solution. By no means is it perfect- and actually the PTA doesn't fully support it because not enough money is proposed to actually go for the kids instruction- but the main idea is that AT LEAST 65% of the school budget should go toward actual instructional expenses vs. outside the classroom expenses. It would be curious to analyze the current budget and see how much of our money goes toward in class, and how much toward out of class expenses. It is interesting to note that teachers are included as an in class expense- while admin as an outside.
Many good points and thanks to everyone who commented.
The last set of comments contained some interesting points.
New teachers. Teachers don't traditionally switch jobs after their first few years. They look for an opportunity, then look to find an ideal district once they have a few years experience. After that they pretty much stay put because moving results in a loss of step (some districts won't give more than a certain step regardless of years experience).
If you look at the NASD chart on salary most teachers are currently in the first four or five steps, and then a large number are at the top step with few in-between.
Since late 1990s into early 2000s many teachers have retired and the new teachers largely outnumber the experienced ones resulting in a shortage of mentors.
When you compound this with a growth district (more hires), high administration turnover, and changes in curriculum it seems you are not putting your new teachers in the best position to learn and develop as teachers (not their fault, simply the reality of the situation), which means, in turn they will not be in the best position to guide and mentor the next generation of new teachers. Eventually, the same quality of teaching that was once in place is lost.
The 65% solution is interesting and seems low. If a charity only offered 65% of what it raised to its cause, there would probably be an investigation.
This does seem like a good way, as a benchmark at least, to keep districts focused on the core purpose of the school - teaching students. I'd love to see the district adopt a target and try to hit it on an annual basis.
I don't think it should be a surprise to see the teacher as the in class expense (doing the teaching) and the administration as an out of class expense. In the end the administration is not educating the children, it is the overhead.
I think as much as the NAEA has been upset with administration pay hikes, it should be more upset with the growth of the administration. Today there are fifteen administrators listed on the administration page compared to eleven (albeit by my recollection) in 2000 and many of the titles have been 'improved'. That is something like a 25% increase in administration, and these salaries are typically much larger than teachers.
Given the comments made today and the jumps in cost per student (projected to be over $11,000 in 2006/7) it seems the NASD needs to take a hard look at its budget and focus before it engages a building project of this scale.
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