Board OKs private funding for school building study

Vermont Standard

11/27/19

By Allan Stein

Standard Staff

A majority of the Windsor Central Unified District School Board authorized on Monday the acceptance of private donations totaling $235,000 for a study to assess costs for building a middle-high school in Woodstock.

The restricted donations are only for use toward a feasibility study, which will be conducted by Lavallee Brensinger Architects (LBA) at a projected cost of $425,000.

LBA is the same firm that produced a comprehensive facilities master plan for the district, which included the option to build a new middle- high school.

The total estimated cost of implementing the master plan, with new construction, is approximately $68 million. However, school officials feel those numbers are pliable, and can come in lower with a proper study.

“This (feasibility) study is about getting to the numbers.

This is an opportunity (that the board) is not going to have again,” said Bridgewater board member Matthew Hough.

Even so, the building project is not a “fait accompli,” Hough said.

The donations are from three anonymous sources — in sums of $200,000, $25,000, and $10,000, respectively. Funding for the study will be released once matching funds or pledges are secured, or in lesser increments with legal written permission by the donors.

As restricted money, the donations may be allocated for use toward the cost of the LBA and Master Plan Team fees for the next phase of middle-high school project planning, according to a WCSU fact sheet.

This will include, in part, architectural, structural, civil/ landscape, engineering, geotechnical, a traffic study and “other work” as outlined in LBA’s proposal.

The recently created New Building Committee recommended an expenditure of $30,000 of district funds from unused Act 46 consolidation grant funds, also for use toward the LBA feasibility study.

At Monday’s meeting, the board passed that recommendation, 10-3. The board also voted, 112, to authorize the district superintendent to enter into a project contract with LBA to support new building planning and design services.

Although funding was accepted, there was still much discussion about the study and building project.

Earlier this year, at the June 10 board meeting, the board endorsed another study committee’s recommendation to do a study of the “financial feasibility” of a district-wide facility improvement plan, including a middle-high school building option.

“We never said it would cost money to do a financial feasibility study,” said Barnard board member Pamela Fraser at Monday’s meeting.

“I feel that spending any money is premature, and it’s not what we voted in June,” she said.

Fraser added the June 10 board vote could be used to “further the notion that this specific (school) rebuild is the only possible solution to the building’s needs.”

At Monday’s meeting, Killington Town Manager Chet Hagenbarth said his concern with a feasibility study is timing and lack of “base information.”

“The reality is without there being site work we don’t know where we can put the building. All of the design work could end up being for naught,” Hagenbarth said.

“I think we’re putting the cart before the horse. You’re putting a lot of money at risk,” he added.

“This whole plan is just ludicrous,” said Killington resident Robert Montgomery about the cost of doing a feasibility study.

A new school building “is not going to result in better grades,” he said.

“This is an ill conceived (building project) plan. It’s going to have major tax increases, which most Vermonters cannot afford now,” he said in a follow-up interview. “A lot of this (project information) is the first time people have heard about this. As more people are finding out about this, and how it’s being kept underneath the radar, there’s not a lot of support for this at this time,” Montgomery said.

As a former developer, Montgomery said he believes that refurbishing the existing middle-high school building would be a more “cost-effective option as opposed to a “tear down.”

In the meantime, school district officials have been conducting public tours of the middle-high school building to point out the dilapidated condition of the building, and its antiquated heating, ventilation and electrical systems. The school was built in 1958.

While national studies show a link between poor air quality and student performance, Woodstock school officials said, no such studies have been done at the middle- high school to date.

Killington board member Jim Haff said if air quality in the school is bad, “please tell me why it is still open.”

“I am not here to slow down the process of a vote” on a new school,” he said, “but stop the scare tactics.”

Woodstock board member Claire Drebitko described the feasibility study as an “important next step to rightsize” the building project’s cost and scope.