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Chair Carey said that this part of the meeting is to provide updates and to hear any <br />comments ar suggestions from members of the School Boards or County Commissioners on <br />some of the items that the school collaboration task force will be addressing in the near future. <br />Jahn Link thanked Chair Carey, members of the Board of Commissioners, and members <br />of the School Boards. The first item is re-examining school construction standards. These <br />standards were created initially far elementary and middle school buildings in the mid-90s and <br />then later {in 1999) standards for high schools were created. The collaboration work group <br />identified this as a major item that needs to be addressed this year. The per square-foot costs <br />and other elements that go into the cost of estimating a school and actually building the school <br />have all gone up, as has the cost of steel and concrete and other items that are all included in <br />the building costs. Jahn Link said the idea is for there to be a general discussion with ideas <br />being solicited by the County Commissioners and Schaal Board members. <br />Lisa Stuckey, Chapel Hill Carrboro School Board, said she and Commissioner Gordon <br />are the two surviving members of the most recent school facility task force. She said it does <br />seem that it is very appropriate to reconsider this, as there are different ideas now about some <br />of the environmental issues related to school construction, acreage, and same of the smart <br />growth issues. The collaboration committee felt it was time to look again at these standards. <br />Dennis Whitling, Orange County School Board, asked about the capacity of Orange High <br />School and Cedar Ridge School. In reading the high school construction standards, his <br />understanding is that these were approved in 1999. He wanted to know if the capacity of <br />Orange County High School stands at 1000 students with the ability to expand in future years <br />and is that what was built at Cedar Ridge? He said that high school #3 is being built for 800 <br />students with the capacity to go to 1200 students. He wondered how the decision was made. <br />Commissioner Gordon responded and said that all the construction standards called for <br />a certain amount of money in the range of $28, $29, $30 million dollars and the new high school <br />with a thousand students would cost $34 million. The Commissioners allocated $30 million so <br />the school system had to cut down the capacity from a 1000-student school expandable to 1500 <br />to an 800-student school expandable to 1200 so they could fit within the available funding. <br />Dennis Whitling wanted to know who made the decision for the School Board and the <br />County Commissioners to vary from the standard. <br />Commissioner Gordon said this was a collaborative decision between the <br />Commissioners and the School Board and Lisa Stuckey agreed. Ms. Stuckey also emphasized <br />that when they designed the school to be expandable to1200 students they tried to make the <br />core facilities very flexible. Although it would be a bit of a stretch, expansion could be done. <br />Pam Hemminger, Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board, said she would like to advocate <br />putting community mental health staff into the schools. Also, the state school board now has <br />requirements for physical activities in the elementary and middle schools, but the schools lack <br />the space for this and the state did not budget money for it. Superintendent Neil Pedersen said <br />that the standards as they are written were composed after East Chapel Hill School was built <br />{1000 students expandable to 1500) and that is where that additional design standard came <br />from. During the discussions on a variety of sizes for the CHCCS proposed high school it was <br />painted out that there really weren't standards far other size high schools. It was not the intent <br />when these standards were adopted that the only school that would ever be built was a 1500- <br />student high school or a 1000 expandable to 1500. This means that as we work towards <br />another model we would have some flexibility for different sized high schools that will be <br />acceptable to the Commissioners. <br />AI Hartkopf asked if they had gotten to a place where the amount of money allocated to <br />build said high school was reached. <br />Commissioner Gordon said there are different standards in square footage costs and <br />they have not been addressed for a while. When the CHCCS School Board came forth with a <br />