Facilities Review:

Just a few points from my perspective:

There is little discussion about a facility. Mainly it was mentioned that at the start up a leased facility would be likely. Beyond that, 80 square feet per pupil was what they would build to, ultimately having a facility of 40,000 square feet. We currently house a population of around 350 elementary kids in facilities that are around 70,000 square feet. In most of those cases there is a cafeteria and a gym comprising about 5,000 square feet each. Seems like it will be too small, but perhaps we are spoiled.

A leased building will still require adherence to the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA). The facility will need to be inspected for asbestos and surveyed every six months (if older that 1988). Areas of the building that have significant damage or the potential for significant damage from asbestos will have to be addressed before occupancy. Private building owners who lease their properties do not have this requirement, so the building owner may not even know asbestos is present.

If AHS determines, as did our other charter schools, that they wish to purchase maintenance services, our Facilities Department is operating at or beyond capacity as we can barely keep up with our current work load. Additional budget and facilities personnel will be required.

There is mention of parent volunteers to do a minimal amount of work at the school ("i.e. food, landscaping, snow removal, etc."). This was a commitment that Community of Learners required of their parents that, in my opinion, was a failure. The parents actually did custodial and maintenance work in COL and the facility was dirty, smelled, and lighting was very poor. We had to make corrections even when they were not paying for maintenance services.

I would also like to make sure that we avoid being in the same position that we were in with our other two charter schools, and that’s trying to maintain an un-maintainable building. Once the charter schools took over the Smiley Arts and Science Building, the district was immediately required to bring the building up to minimal ADA standards. We had built Escalante Middle School as a replacement for Smiley because the building was worn out. The roof, windows, and mechanical systems were decades beyond their useful life.

The lack of any real information about facilities really bothers me, given the availability and the price of commercial real estate in this area. They either have facilities that they have an inside line on, or they are very naive in their perspective. I believe they will be very hard pressed to find a facility that will accommodate them until they have constructed their own building. If they have one lined up, I believe that it may be lacking in basic life and safety elements that are required of typical school structures.

There you have it, my two cents worth.

Joe Sargent

Director of Facilities

Durango School District 9R

jsargent@durango.k12.co.us