Minutes - 09-25-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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He would be prepared to meet immediately to revisit the standards. The school board feels that they need Elementary School #9 yesterday. Commissioner Gordon said that it was important to the County Commissioners to bring down the cost of schools as low as possible. The County Commissioners want to work with the school systems to bring the costs down. Susan Halkiotis said that the tour of Pathways might be good to take before the standards are revisited. She supports getting on with the discussion of the standards and thinks the tour needs to take place sooner than later. Nick Didow extended an invitation for the Commissioners to tour Scroggs and East Chapel Hill High School phase one, because it was built for what the Orange County schools plan to spend for their new high school. Commissioner Halkiotis said that the current standards were extremely generous. He said that the Commissioners had never been cheap in regards to education. Bob Bateman said that he agreed with Commissioner Halkiotis. The County Commissioners have funded the schools generously. The County Commissioners supported the schools in every instance. He feels that the current standards are very generous. He wanders why an Elementary School would have to be built that would cost 3 or 4 million dollars more. Chair Carey feels that the schools systems should use the standards until the Board revises and adopts new ones for planning purposes. If the County Commissioners have concerns about specific areas, they will ask the school systems. The next step will be a final revised draft of the Policy on Planning and Funding School Capital Projects that will be prepared and shared with both schools systems and then approved by the County Commissioners at a regular meeting. PragramlStafflFacility Initiatives with Significant 2001-02 Budgetary Impacts Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools: Chapel Hill School Superintendent Neil Pedersen distributed a memo and said that this summarized the issues of the budget requests for 2001-2002. Commissioner Brown asked about the committee looking at overcrowding strategies and asked for an update. Teresa Williams said that the work was very preliminary and the committee is pursuing a number of avenues, but is not ready to make a report at this time. Nick Didow made reference to other possibilities for alternative schools and said that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board has discussed the possibility of providing several alternative schools. The Phoenix Academy is one program but there are many other programs for reaching middle and high school students. With each possibility come cost implications far staff and facilities. Commissioner Jacobs encouraged the two school systems to work together an alternative schools. He feels that it is important to look at ways the two school systems can collaborate, and when they look at sites that are on the border between the two school systems, it may be the time they can provide services for students in both systems. He said that he was told a few years ago that Chapel Hill would be built out within a few years and he wonders how much more growth is expected. Elizabeth Carter said that the amount of growth is unknown. Neil Pedersen said that Chapel Hill is clearly not built out and that children are moving into the area. There is still quite a bit of land within the school district that is developable. Commissioner Brown made reference to page 17 (Attachment 4d-1}and asked about average daily membership and Neil Pedersen said that he would provide that information. He said that the 20-day average would be lower than the enrollment figures for the 20t" day. John Link asked about the overcrowded conditions in the middle school and if the overcrowded conditions will be alleviated with Smith Middle School. He asked how Chapel Hill- Carrboro City School Board is using mobile classrooms. Neil said that they have 21 mobile units -