South Portland School Department Middle School Task Force December 1, 2010 5:30-7:30 pm Mahoney Middle School Conference Room
Minutes
5:30 pm – Tour of Mahoney Middle School
Present: Kathy Germani, Julie Rothrock, Julie Pitt, Sara Goldberg, Ralph Baxter, Jr., Tom Fiorini, Megan Welter Absent: Suzanne Godin, Joey Fassett, Jerry McQueeney
1. Approve minutes from November 17, 2010 – Approved – 7-0
2. Physical status of Mahoney facility • The committee toured the building from 5:30 – 6:20 p.m. • Kathy provided a review of the meeting with the DoE relative to the visit for the construction application. There were concerns relative to the location of the building, given the extensive traffic passing the building. Additional concerns were raised about the building being wood-frame construction, a lack of ADA accessibility. • Discussion of the playing fields at Mahoney. There have been studies of the fields. The plan is that in the spring, work will be done to “settle” the field before fill is brought in. The hope is that the fields will be playable in the future. • What are the options? Get money from the State and renovate both? Get enough money to renovate one? Go to the voters and hope we can get one renovated project funded? Can the buildings be “fixed?” o We did conduct a 1-3-5 year study of the secondary schools to guide our maintenance and renovation work.
3. State construction funding projections • The State is reviewing and scoring 74 applications. • The State has approximately $100 million dollars available for building projects. State funding for a building is based on the town’s mil rate. • The prioritized list of projects will come out sometime this spring. While the State might raise the ceiling for building, it sounds like the State would target that money first for consolidated projects involving a high school, technical school and a community college consolidated campus. These kinds of projects would get priority, even if the applying school was lower on the list. • The hope of the applications for State funding was to submit applications for both Memorial and Mahoney, that one of the projects would be funded. If one of our schools were high enough on the list to be funded, the Secondary Schools Facilities Committee would work then develop a plan. This plan might include consolidating both middle schools.
4. Projected Enrollments • Committee looked at a summary of enrollment projections document for school planning purposes. • Is there the same level of crowding in the middle schools that has been seen at the elementary schools? No, but the projected enrollments will increase. • The projections from Planning Decisions have been accurate within 5%. • There are questions about whether or not there will be additional building in the city that could impact enrollments. There are also questions about whether or not the HS project will draw people. We anticipate commissioning another Planning Decisions report in 2-3 years to re-evaluate enrollment projections.
5. Projected State funding • We examined the General Purpose Aid to Education document; • Without considering increases to insurance, benefits and salaries, the projected budget deficit is $1,010,765 after targeting $1,200,000 of surplus to the beginning balance.
6. Agenda development for December 15, 2010 • Can we look at a map of the city and the districts within the city? • Question about surveying the elementary school parents about current configurations? • Question about reconfiguring the middle schools to a 5-6 school and a 7-8 school. • If we aren’t looking at configurations, how do we gather information and feedback from the community related to what is possible? • Program Sizes: Looking at program sizes o If we have 2 buildings, what are the constraints on the schedule? How does it relate to staffing and to the numbers of sections that can be offered? • What does the money get us? Looking at school budgets o How much money goes to each middle school? o Can we look at each school’s budget? • What are the options? If we are at a $1+ million deficit, how much of a “hit” does that middle level have to take? What does $1 million get you? What does that mean in terms of positions? How would the loss of those positions impact the middle school? o Can we look at EPS compared with our numbers and then talk about how the loss of those positions would impact the middle school program?
Agenda 5:30 – 6:15 – Tour of Memorial and discussion of the physical status of Memorial 6:15 – 7:30 p.m. • Program sizes • What does money get us? • What are the options?
