Minutes 12-10-2024 - Business Meeting

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15 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. 9 OP,ANG Cp OLINA COUNTY TTOR'FHCommissioner Fowler said it sounded reasonable. She asked if Wake is using one of these methods and how their experience has been. Travis Myren said Wake used the Carolina Demography method, but that staff has not yet spoken with Wake County. Vice-Chair Hamilton said this is long overdue and using these methodologies will allow the schools to have a consistent capacity measure across different uses. She said they will be using the most accurate numbers that they can. She said she liked that the"shocks to the system" could be gathered via the model. Commissioner Carter asked if the models anticipate the charter and private school impacts. Travis Myren said the Carolina Demography model specifically mentions the losses to private schools. Commissioner Portie-Ascott asked for clarification about development being suspended. Travis Myren said that in the MOU, there is a section that states when a development is proposed, the schools need to certify that there is adequate capacity. He said then theoretically the local government would not approve the development to go forward. He said that has not happened in practice. He said it is on paper, but potentially difficult to enforce. Commissioner Greene said that when SAPFO was created, that was the way it was supposed to work. She said that the intent was not for it to be a choke on development but was to spur new schools. She said that was what happened in the 1990s. She said that the intent was to keep an eye on how development was going, so as developments came on line, the schools would know to build a new school. Chair Bedford said between 1973 and 1993, no new schools were built in Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. She said in that year, schools like Ephesus Elementary School that had a capacity of 475 had 734 students, and lunch began at 9:30 a.m. She said the SAPFO agreement came from that experience, so that there were parameters for building new schools. She said that when there was a need for Carrboro High School the MOU was not enforced because everyone was moving forward with the right intent. She said it is a planning tool.