Agenda - 09-23-2002 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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APPROVED 9/19/02 neighborhoods, but eventually they can't be patched anymore. We should consider deconstructing unserviceable schools and rebuilding in place. Steve explained that basic capacity is easy to calculate (x classrooms times y kids per class)—it gets tricky with the ebb and flow that results from capacity adjustments that are necessitated by special needs kids. A 26-student classroom may quickly be reduced to 4-5 capacity if more autistic kids enroll. He cited an example that last week 6 autistic kids enrolled for next year, which reduces elementary capacity by 24. Steve notes they can't serve autistic kids in _ modular units because of regulations requiring access s to facilities,.ADA compliance, etc. John notes the problem that causes with developers who don't understand capacity changes that might keep them from getting authority to build. Alice notes it's impossible to forecast growth in special needs. Lisa and Steve point out that people come to CHCCS from all over the country for the TEACCH program—they have grown from 1 to 8-9 autistic classes, Alice notes that we went about 20 years without building new schools —that means we have new schools and others that have their charm but have their problems as well. Some things you can't practically deal with — if school classrooms were built too small, it's hard to adjust that— it may be prohibitively expensive to bring those up to current standards. Gloria wonders if adding storage space in older facilities could address fire code concerns and lead to more effective classroom space. Alice wonders can room size be designed to not be so specialized? Flexspace may be more controversial, but.... She notes Craig's previous mention of this as a way to address any "bubble" moving through the school system in terms of the number of kids in a particular grade level. Craig notes in Florida that there might be a larger size for some classrooms that would allow different ages and class sizes to use the same space as grade sizes increase and decrease. This works best in campus type sites where a building could be used one year for elementary and at a different time for middle school kids. Randy said that student surveys have gone out. Parent studies would go out next fall. Steve says the student surveys are out, but he doesn't know when they were administered. Both systems will provide their surveys as information for the BOCC. Gloria thinks SAPFO and construction standards decisions are needed to support the work of the group looking at the Old 86 site and to make a decision about a third high school. We need to have the timeline for this task force mesh with the timeline for the Old 86 property process timeline that Dave Stancil distributed recently.