Agenda - 01-21-2025 ; 8-a - Minutes

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15 1 Slide #9 Recommendation • To authorize staff to provide notice to the parties of the School Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Memorandum of Understanding (SAPFO MOU)that the student projection methodology will be changed to either the one employed by the Operational Research and Education Laboratory (OREd)or Carolina Demography and invite comment from the parties. • The SAPFO MOU requires the County to provide notice of proposed changes to the parties by February 1. • The Board of Commissioners will make a final decision on which methodology is used moving forward in April 2025. GRANGE COUNTY 9 1:l 11L I t i cC:AROLTNA 2 3 Commissioner Fowler said it sounded reasonable. She asked if Wake is using one of 4 these methods and how their experience has been. 5 Travis Myren said Wake used the Carolina Demography method, but that staff has not 6 yet spoken with Wake County. 7 Vice-Chair Hamilton said this is long overdue and using these methodologies will allow 8 the schools to have a consistent capacity measure across different uses. She said they will be 9 using the most accurate numbers that they can. She said she liked that the "shocks to the 10 system" could be gathered via the model. 11 Commissioner Carter asked if the models anticipate the charter and private school 12 impacts. 13 Travis Myren said the Carolina Demography model specifically mentions the losses to 14 private schools. 15 Commissioner Portie-Ascott asked for clarification about development being suspended. 16 Travis Myren said that in the MOU, there is a section that states when a development is 17 proposed, the schools need to certify that there is adequate capacity. He said then theoretically 18 the local government would not approve the development to go forward. He said that has not 19 happened in practice. He said it is on paper, but potentially difficult to enforce. 20 Commissioner Greene said that when SAPFO was created, that was the way it was 21 supposed to work. She said that the intent was not for it to be a choke on development but was 22 to spur new schools. She said that was what happened in the 1990s. She said that the intent 23 was to keep an eye on how development was going, so as developments came on line, the 24 schools would know to build a new school. 25 Chair Bedford said between 1973 and 1993, no new schools were built in Chapel Hill 26 Carrboro City Schools. She said in that year, schools like Ephesus Elementary School that had 27 a capacity of 475 had 734 students, and lunch began at 9:30 a.m. She said the SAPFO 28 agreement came from that experience, so that there were parameters for building new schools. 29 She said that when there was a need for Carrboro High School the MOU was not enforced 30 because everyone was moving forward with the right intent. She said it is a planning tool.