POSTS

The group that has been organized to figure out how the district should move with its facilities held its second meeting in November. 

Led by Capital Region BOCES Facilitator Joe Dragone, the Facilities Planning Committee spent its first two meetings gathering information about the past, present and potential future of the district’s buildings. The September meeting was held at the Mountain View Campus, and the November meeting was held at Lake View Campus. Both meetings started with a building tour to let committee members observe building conditions and ask questions.   

Building Condition Survey

At the November meeting, BCA Architects & Engineers shared information about a Building Condition Survey they did this fall. School districts are required by the state to do a BCS every five years. Boquet wasn’t due for one until next year, but the district decided to go through the process early to have a clear understanding of the current status of all of its facilities. 

Taylor Woolf and Mike Harris detailed the bare minimum needed at both campuses to keep them open and operating safely. The total cost associated with the immediate needs is $20.5 million for both campuses, with incidentals, contingency and inflation figured in. The architects stressed that other costly immediate needs would likely turn up soon if this bare minimum is all that is done.

To explore details of the Building Condition Survey, review the presentation slideshow from the meeting. 

Other topics 

A range of other topics were also discussed at the November meeting. A few of the considerations to be taken into account include: 

• The district’s athletic fields are in need of work, and state aid would not be available for upgrades or moving them to a new site unless the fields are moved to a property that also has school buildings on it. 
• The district’s bus garage also has some needs, and much more work would be needed if the state moves forward with requiring all districts to move fully to electric buses in the coming years. A bus garage not on a site with a school building would likely not get as much state aid but will be eligible for some. 
• There’s a 10-year window for extra state aid on construction due to the school district merger in 2019-2020. That money will be gone if it isn’t used by then.
• There would be savings associated with operating at a single site rather than two different sites. 
• Committee members not employed by the district or with students in the district expressed surprise at the space in school buildings needed for counselors or partnerships with other community organizations and programs. 

Informing the public

The district is seeking to prioritize communication about the committee as its work develops, because the results will have a major impact on everyone in the community. 

• Updated web page: A new landing page has been created to share information about the committee and act as a place to gather documentation and other information. It can be found at   https://boquetvalleycsd.org/facilities-committee/
• Meeting recordings: Starting with the November meeting, all committee meetings will be recorded on video and will be shared on the committee’s landing page, https://boquetvalleycsd.org/facilities-committee/. Presentation slides and notes from the meetings will be shared there as well for anyone who wants to review them. 
• Physical fliers: Printable fliers with overviews of the committee’s work will be shared after each meeting. These fliers will be printed out and shared in community gathering spaces throughout the district. 

The committee also discussed getting more of the public involved in the discussion using surveys and other means in the future. 

Next meeting

The next committee meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 17 at Mountain View Campus. 

Mr. Dragone’s team plans to bring to that meeting information about potential land parcels that would be big enough to hold any new potential facilities. They will review previous parcels that were considered in the last round of facilities work, and they are looking into any new parcels that may have become available since then. 

With this information and everything else they’ve learned so far, Mr. Dragone intends to help the team start narrowing down options to consider moving forward. He also mentioned encouraging them to start developing a timeline. The first decision he is encouraging the committee to make centers on whether it will be a priority for the district to have both schools on one campus or to keep operating on multiple sites.